Downwinders: Blood Oath, Blood River Part 15

She found three day planners along with a variety of other doc.u.ments that intrigued her. Before, when she'd been hunting through boxes for her father's journals, she'd just been looking for bound books, the kind that looked like the blank journals you could buy at the store and start writing in. This time she'd been more meticulous, going through her father's papers and pulling out anything of interest. Most of what she'd collected didn't relate to what she was really looking for, but she wanted to go through it anyway, because it caught her eye. Most of it just helped her understand her father better. And some of it did no more than help her remember him, and that was a sufficient reason to pull it.

She opened the first day planner, for 2009. She scanned through it, looking for repeating patterns. There was nothing that stood out. Most of the appointments in the planner were for evening and weekend meetings, and most were typical Stake President tasks, like setting apart missionaries and high council meetings.

She moved to the 2010 and 2011 planners, flipping through the pages. She stopped when she reached July of 2011, when the appointments in the pages began to thin out abruptly, and their nature changed from church meetings to doctor and hospital appointments. By October the planner was virtually empty. There was nothing after Halloween. Her father had died on November 29th.

She turned the page and stared at December, two pages completely blank. She looked at Christmas, sitting on the page with no hint of how awful it had been. The worst Christmas of my life, she thought. She ran her finger over the day in the planner, wanting to rip it out. She noticed a small dot under the date, as though her father had lightly touched a ball point pen in that spot. It was a Sunday, the last Sunday in December.

She turned a page back. The last Sunday in November had a similar dot under the number. It was tiny, just a speck. If you weren't looking for it, you might think it was an error in the printing.

She turned back to October. The last Sunday had a dot under it. She lifted the planner and held the page up to the light. Was it made by a pen? She turned back another page, to September. There was an indent on the back side of October. It was made by a pen, she thought.

She flipped back to January. Last Sunday of the month, a dot under the number.

She picked up the 2010 planner and opened it to July. Same marking. She flipped through the rest of the months. For each final Sunday of each month, the same mark appeared.

She tried the 2009 planner. The marks were consistent.

This doesn't prove the secret council met on the last Sunday of each month, she thought, but he did mark these dates. And there's nothing on the schedule for those evenings, like there are on other Sundays. And he marked all of 2011, probably at the first of the year when he got the day planner, since he knew in advance those would be the meeting dates, even though it wound up that he couldn't attend the final ones that year. This must be it.

She checked her phone, pulled up a calendar for the current month. The last Sunday of this month would be the day after tomorrow, the day they were to return from Broken Hills with Awan.

She checked the 2011 planner in January. Her father's appointments on the last Sunday of that month ran until six p.m. She checked other days, and found the same thing no appointments after six.

We'll be back from Broken Hills long before six, she thought. And we'll track Dayton and find out where he goes.

Chapter Eight.

Deem drove to Winn's at six a.m. the next morning and left her truck at his trailer in Moapa. Winn drove them both in his Jeep to Indian Springs.

"We've got to make a quick stop in North Vegas to meet Erin," Deem told Winn as they started off. "Her mom had some alocutis and she's driving it up from Kingman to meet us this morning."

"Oh, I'd love to see Erin again," Winn said, smiling.

"Leave her alone," Deem said.

"It's not me," Winn said. "She's got a thing for me."

"Don't encourage her," Deem said. "She's nave and doesn't know what bad news you are."

"'Bad news' is not how most people describe an interaction with me," Winn said. "They usually come away happy and satisfied."

"Ugh. Don't flirt with her, I mean it."

"We'll see. It'll have to be a quick stop if we're going to make Indian Springs on time."

"She knows it'll be quick. I told her we're on a timetable."

"How did looking for your father's day planners go?"

Deem related what she'd found to Winn. "I can't be one hundred percent sure the mark he made on those dates means a secret council meeting, but it's worth a shot."

"So we'll need to be back in Mesquite by four or five, at the latest?" Winn asked.

"Yes," Deem answered. "If we miss this opportunity, we'll have to wait a month to track him again."

"If you're right about the dates."

"If we watch him and he doesn't leave the house then I'll know to start over."

"We should be able to make that fine, provided we get the work done today. We'll want to leave Fallon early tomorrow to be safe."

"Have you ever collected ghost matter before?" Deem asked.

"No, but I watched my mother do it," Winn replied. "It's an unpleasant process, as I recall."

"I've never done it. This'll be educational for me."

They met Erin at a truck stop by the Speedway in North Vegas. Seeing Erin's car in the parking lot, Deem hopped out of Winn's Jeep and ran to give Erin a hug, then produced a small box wrapped in shiny green paper.

"Oh, my favorite color," Erin said. She was about Deem's height and slightly heavier, with black hair and a tattoo on the side of her neck.

"Happy birthday!" Deem said. "Another time I'll tell you what I went through to get it."

"Here's this," Erin said, exchanging the alocutis for the wrapped box.

"Thanks," Deem said. "I'm on my way to Indian Springs to give it to a guy there. Well, don't wait, unwrap it before I have to leave!"

Winn walked up to the two as Erin was unwrapping the box. Erin saw him coming and smiled. "Oh, hi, Winn!" she said.

"h.e.l.lo, beautiful," Winn said, giving her a kiss on her cheek. "I understand it's your birthday."

"Yes," Erin said, a little embarra.s.sed. "Deem has given me this!" She held up the box for Winn to see, then finished unwrapping it and looked inside.

"It's a powder," Erin said, a little underwhelmed. She looked up at Deem.

"Iridium," Deem said.

Erin mouth dropped. She formed her mouth into a large oval.

"From Tillburton," Deem added.

Erin's eyes widened and she let out a scream of delight.

"No!" Erin said. "How did you...?"

"Another time," Deem said. "I'll come down when the mess I'm in is over. And that's a birthday present to you, personally, not an exchange with your mom for the alocutis. I'll repay her for that separately."

"She'll be shocked you got me this," Erin said, staring down into the small box. "I can't believe it either."

Deem smiled, glad that her present was appreciated. I guess it was worth what I went through to get it, she thought.

"We've got to run," Deem said. "Say hi to your mom for me."

"I will," Erin said, still staring down into the box.

Deem leaned forward to give Erin a goodbye hug and walked back to the Jeep. Winn opened his arms to give her a hug too.

"Happy birthday again," he said as he wrapped her up in his arms. When he let her go she was a little flushed.

"Thank you," Erin said, smiling broadly.

Winn returned to the Jeep and they took off for Indian Springs.

"Well, that seemed to go over well," Winn said.

"You didn't grope her during that hug, did you?" Deem asked.

"So suspicious! You've really got to trust me more."

"I would if I didn't know you better."

An hour later they reached Indian Springs, a small town dwarfed by the air force base it sat next to. Awan's modest house was at the edge of town. As Awan saw them pull in, he came out of his house with a large backpack, threw it into the back of Winn's Jeep, and jumped into the back seat.

"You know the way?" Awan asked Winn.

"Straight up 95?" Winn asked back.

"Yes," Awan answered, "about two hundred and fifty miles. Then we turn off and go another fifty."

"So if we're lucky," Deem said, "We'll make it by two."

"Plenty of time," Awan said.

"You've been there before?" Winn asked. "Inside Broken Hills?"

"Once, many years ago as a kid," Awan said. "We should be able to get in and out within an hour once we're there."

"Broken Hills isn't downwind," Deem said. "Right?"

"Correct," Awan said. "No zombighosts, just the regular old fashioned kind."

"Refreshing," Winn said. "Haven't been around normal ghosts in a while."

"It's a different experience when you don't have to worry about your skin being ripped off," Awan said.

"We've got a couple of things we need to discuss with you," Deem said. "First, we need to head back as early as possible tomorrow. Some things that I need to get done tomorrow back home."

"We can leave as early as you want," Awan said.

"Second, how much do you know about how to kill a skinrunner?"

Awan furrowed his brow. "It's come to that?" he asked.

"Turns out the object Eliza sent us only worked twice," Deem said. "I used it on myself and my aunt. We're both fine, but now my mother has become infected, and the object is finished. So unless I want to spend the rest of my life cutting bone fragments out of her arm, we've got to find a way to shut him down completely."

"That'll be tricky," Awan said. "And dangerous. But there is a way."

"How?" Winn asked.

"Well," Awan began, "with a regular skinwalker, there were two traditional ways. If a victim could find out the skinwalker's ident.i.ty, he only needed to speak the full name of the skinwalker to kill him, or to cause him to leave you alone. If you weren't a victim, they say you can kill one with a bullet dipped in white ash.

"But with the mutations this shaman is creating, things are different. You've already seen how fast he can run and fly while remaining a man. The way you kill him is different, too. Just saying his name isn't good enough. You have to get the loved one he killed to say his name. It's more powerful, and it seems to work."

"The loved one he killed to become a skinrunner in the first place?" Winn asked.

"Yes," Awan said.

"How the f.u.c.k are we going to do that?" Deem asked.

"You'll have to do some research and get a name," Awan said. "It's no good without the name of the person they killed."

"If we get a name," Deem said, "then what?"

"If you can find something that belonged to the killer or the victim, and you have the name, my sister can help locate them," Awan offered.

"I've got something he's touched," Deem said, thinking of the bankers boxes she'd taken from the skinrunner's garage.

"But even if we know who he killed, there's a bigger problem," Winn said. "They're dead. They can't speak. Not with a real voice."

"That's why I said it was tricky," Awan replied. "There's only two things I know of that can make a ghost corporeal. The first is whatever this mutation is that turns them into zombighosts. You won't be able to deal with the result of that, they're too irrational when they turn they just want to attack. So that approach is out. The second way is something very rare. Have you ever heard of the Rivers of Statera?"

Winn looked at Deem. They both shrugged. "No," Winn said.

"There's a couple of places in the River," Awan said, "where these waters run. They're sometimes called blood rivers. They only exist in the River, you can't see them any other way."

"What are they?" Deem asked.

"No one knows for sure," Awan said. "There are gifteds who have tried to figure them out. Some people think they're a symbolic representation of the blood shed of innocent people, but no one's been able to prove that."