"Those words terrified the little boy," her grandmother continued. "'So tell me, Grandfather, which of the wolves will win this fight?' The old chief smiled at his grandson and he cupped his young cheek before he answered with one simple truth. 'Always the one we feed.'"
Her grandmother's voice echoed through Kateri's dream as she tried her best to wake herself. Be careful what you feed, child. For that beast will follow you home and live with you until you either make a bed for it to stay, or find the temerity to drive it out.
But her grandmother wasn't through with her warnings. She took Kateri's hand and pulled her forward through time. Into a place that was eerie and foreign, and at the same time, it was familiar. Like she'd been here before and forgotten it.
Or banished it.
Though the sweeping winds were hot, they made her blood run cold with dread-as if there was something innately evil here. Something that wanted her dead. All around them, stalagmites and stalactites formed misshapen beasts that added to her discomfort. The red earthen walls reminded her of a Martian landscape. More than that, those walls held sketches of past battles between warriors and a feathered snake that rose up above them, breathing fire from its nostrils as it tried to defeat them.
"This is where the end begins."
Before she could ask her grandmother what she meant, Kateri saw a shadow move across the floor. It grabbed her from behind and jerked her back against a rock-hard chest. She felt swallowed by the size of the man who held her with an ease that terrified her. Dressed in a white linen shirt, black vest, and jeans, he had long ebony hair that fell to the middle of his back. Dark eyes flashed in a face so perfectly sculpted that he didn't appear real.
Familiar with this stranger, she relaxed.
Until he spoke.
"For all time," he whispered in her ear an instant before he plunged a knife deep into her heart, then threw her to the ground to die. Her last sight was of him turning into a crow so that he could fly away from her.
Shaking and scared, Kateri woke up in a cold sweat to the sound of her alarm clock blaring. At 4:30 in the morning, her bedroom was still pitch dark, but even so she sensed a presence near her bed. More than that, she smelled the faint scent of peppermint and Jurgen's lotion.
Her grandmother's scent. There had only been one other time when she'd awakened to this sensation and smell-the night her grandmother had died while she'd been in college. Goosebumps ran over her body as tears filled her eyes.
"Eleesee?" she breathed, using the Cherokee word for grandmother.
Lightning flashed, highlighting the shadows in her room. Kateri gasped as the one in the corner appeared to be the solid form of a woman.
Only it wasn't her grandmother. Instead, it was twisted and horrific. Ugly.
Worse, the shadow lunged at her.
Reacting on pure instinct, Kateri threw her arm up and whispered the ancient words of protection her grandmother had drilled into her so that she could fight her nightmares whenever they came for her. As she'd been taught, she pushed against the invader with her thoughts, willing it from this existence into the realm that had spawned it. The creature screamed as it reached her bed and its face came within inches of hers. Its hollow eyes flickered like flames before it recoiled as if it had hit a force field. With a shrill caw, it exploded into a fiery creature that twisted and flew through the window in the shape of a crow.
No. Not a crow.
A raven.
Chills ran down her spine as her memories shot her into a place and time she didn't want to go. It's a raven mocker. Withered beings who only revealed themselves to those about to die.
To the souls they intended to devour.
Kateri shook her head harshly. No, she didn't believe in such things. No one or nothing could take a soul from a person. Those were stories her grandmother had told her to amuse or scare her with as a child. Ancient legends.
I'm a scientist. I know there's no such thing as shapeshifting beasts who steal the souls of the dying.
It was impossible.
But her grandmother had believed in them, as well as many of the Cherokee who'd lived on the reservation her grandmother had serviced. So much so that her grandmother had been summoned any time someone was dying. Day and night, until they passed, her grandmother had kept vigil to protect the dying from the raven mockers.
I have battled many of them in my day, child. And like me, you will one day have the ability to see them, too. To fight them for the souls they come to steal. It is your honor to follow after me. And when my time comes, I want you to hold my hand as I cross to the next adventure and protect my soul for me until it's free of this old body and safely through the gates of heaven. Then I shall live among the stars and stare down at you every night as I watch over you.
It was a dream that had never come true. Instead of dying peacefully in her sleep as she'd envisioned, her grandmother had been murdered by a home invader while Kateri was thousands of miles away.
Don't think about it. Any time she did, rage-dark and foul-set her on fire and it took everything she had not to go rabid vigilante. Her grandmother had been the kindest, gentlest creature ever born and some psycho had kicked her door in and ...
Stop! She had to get to work so that ...
Her thoughts scattered as her gaze went to her dresser. There on top, next to the small picture of her and her cousin Sunshine sitting on her grandmother's lap, were the corn dolls she'd been dreaming about. Dolls she hadn't seen in years. Not since the summer when she'd turned sixteen and her grandmother had led her through the ritual to symbolize her walk from childhood into that of an adult.