3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Day 1 Denali, Alaska
“You appear indifferent about this trip to the Brenahiilo,” Samuel observed as the cafeteria doors slid apart and they stepped into the corridor beyond. “Are you not meeting with your anistaa and le’ven’a?”
“I am.”
It did not surprise Wolf that Samuel had sensed his dissatisfaction with the upcoming visit to the Twin Peaks Reservation. His Caetanee had been kin to him since their early rotations of running wild through the forests and fields of the Brenahiilo. They had been accepted into the warrior clans and bound to the Neealaho— the neural web that tied all warriors as one—during the same ceremony. No one, within or without the Shadow Realm, knew him as well as Samuel did.
“If you do not wish to go, why do so?” Small lines knit Samuel’s forehead.
Wolf grunted but offered no explanation. Spending time with Jillian, his shadow le’ven’a, at least of late, brought nothing but frustration and longing.
He could not prevent her from wallowing in her shadow life, existing in her memories. No matter how many spirit walkers he sent to perform the recalling ceremony, no matter how many times they attempted to rejoin the pieces of her shattered soul, they could not reunite her spirit. Sometimes, when the spirit broke too brutally, it could not be made whole.
“Ah.” Samuel stared straight ahead. But his words proved he knew the situation well. “She does not retreat from the Shadow Realm, then?”
Samuel’s face showed nothing, neither did his matter-of-fact tone. But Wolf felt his second’s sympathy. It shimmered through the mental link that tied their minds.
He bled all emotion from his face, voice, and the neural connection that bound them. “She does not.”
After three cycles of drifting with one foot in, one foot out of the Shadow Realm, it surprised him she had not succumbed to her spirit children and joined them at the web of her ancestors. Once, her resistance to death had offered hope that her spirit might return to her, and thus to him.
That had not happened. And such hope was long gone.
“Do you train with Daniel today?” Wolf shot his second a quick glance.
“I do. He becomes more skilled with each rotation.” Pride shined in his Caetanee’s eyes. As it should. Samuel had been more father than uncle to the young one and coached him well.
As Jude had done for Wolf.
Perhaps he should join them. He could use the exercise of his mind and body. Samuel’s nephew had become a fine tactician, and a fine warrior, although he’d yet to set foot on his first a ggress. It would be soon, though. The young one was ready.
“ Betanee. Caetanee.”
A raspy, parchment-thin voice drew Wolf’s attention to the right. Milky eyes caught his gaze. He stopped and turned, instinctively bowing his head and shoulders. All elders were accorded respect for the cycles they had walked the Earth. But Benioko—the Taounaha or earthside voice of the Shadow Warrior—was due instant obedience as well.
The Taounaha’s visions led the Kalikoia. Not just the warriors who called Shadow Mountain home, but the entire tribe. He was the voice, ears, and eyes of the Shadow Warrior, and thus, the most influential of the Hee’woo’nee.
“Come,” the Old One said. Turning, he shuffled toward the utility vehicles parked at the charging station beside the cafeteria.
The shuffling was a fresh worry. So were the faded and filmed eyes. Once Benioko had stood tall, walked with pride—even arrogance. He had faced all challenges with fierce strength. But his years of walking the Shadow Realm and battling the younger gods hung heavy on him. The shaman had long since left the energy and health of youth behind. He had been old before Wolf had joined the warrior clans. He had one foot across the veil now.
As did Jillian.
With Samuel beside him, Wolf followed the Taounaha to an electric cart with seats for four. They climbed in, Benioko settling behind the wheel.
The fact that the Old One had addressed him and Samuel by their warrior designations, rather than their given names, meant this meeting was about warrior matters. Benioko silently confirmed that expectation when he drove the vehicle straight to Shadow Mountain Command.
Wolf listened to the whisper of the Taounaha’s shuffling steps, as they entered the decades old stone building and traversed the cold, echoing halls.
They entered the briefing room and took seats around the massive table. Wolf scanned the archaic wood, his eyes skimming over the names carved into the surface. Hundreds of names, each representing the spirit of a warrior—one who currently walked or had once walked these halls. His gaze easily found Jude’s name. His mentor. His mother’s brother. The loss of his anisbecco still stung his heart, even though the wound was three cycles old.
In the corner of the ancient wood were his and Samuel’s names. It was customary for young warriors to carve their name into the table of memory, but only after they survived the binding ceremony and joined the warriors’ neural web.
All warriors, in and out of the Shadow Realm, except for O’Neill and the four white warriors, were represented on the table. But then the four SEALs were not bound to the Neealaho. And while O’Neill had survived the binding ceremony and joined the warrior clans, he was an outsider, an unwelcome addition to the Neealaho . O’Neill knew this; thus, his absent name from the table of memory.
Wolf still did not understand why Benioko had forced the jie’van upon them.
Custom dictated that the Taounaha speak first, so Wolf and Samuel waited for the Old One to gather his thoughts. As he waited, Wolf studied the crevices digging into Benioko’s forehead. His gaze dropped to the lines bracketing the ancient one’s nose and cheeks. He recognized the vacant look in the elder’s eyes, and the exhaustion folding his face. The slow, shuffling gait he noted earlier came to mind. All were signs of a splintered soul.
Benioko had spirit walked again. And recently. It often took several rotations for the Taounaha to reclaim the pieces of his spirit from the Shadow Realm.
Wolf straightened in concern. It was never wise to walk among the shadow gods without an attendant—someone versed in drawing the spirit back into the physical realm. Sometimes the ancestors were capricious, or the tricksters paid a visit, or the younger shadow gods refused to allow return.
Since Jude’s death, he had attended the elder during the crossing ceremonies. He bore witness as the shaman pierced the veil to the Shadow Realm and consulted with the Shadow Warrior.
Yet, the last request to attend the Old One was long ago.
“Last night, the Shadow Warrior walked my dreams. He showed me a rising darkness, one that will blot out all peoples, across every web of life,” the Old One said, his voice tattered and thin.
Wolf jolted upright in his chair. He must have misunderstood. The Shadow Warrior did not seek out his earthside mouthpiece. His Taounaha went to him through dreams, or if the mind and spirit were fatigued, through the crossing ceremony and the ritual smoke.
Benioko read Wolf’s shock and offered a single solemn nod. “He came to me. In my sleep. I did not seek him out.”
Wolf tensed. If the Shadow Warrior had invaded Benioko’s dreams, something was very wrong in the waking world. So wrong, the elder gods had interfered.
“What did the Shadow Warrior show you?” Wolf asked, dread drilling down to his bones.
“He showed me Hokalita swallowed by a new—” the Old One paused, and frowned, as though contemplating his words. “People,” he finally said. “A people unlike any before. Dead, yet not dead. Connected by thought as one mind, like our sisters the ants and bees. They rise as few but multiply to many and lay waste to all peoples, from all places and customs. They become the one, the only. A swarm of locusts across sister earth. ”
A swarm of new people, connected by thought… A hive mind? Dead but not dead. Zombies? The warning would have been amusing—zombies, for shadow’s sake—except…the Shadow Warrior had invaded his Taounaha’s dreams to give warning.
This had never happened before.
“Where do these new people come from?” The dread lay heavy in Wolf’s gut and chest.
Creation was the providence of the Shadow Warrior and the Blue Moon Mother. Not even the most jealous of their shadow children carried this kind of power.
“From the woohanta , prodded on by the lower realm’s trickster children.” Benioko shook his head tiredly.
So, this new threat had evolved through the Anglo tribe and the elder gods’ envious, capricious shadow children. This was never a good combination. Wolf grimaced. Of course, the Shadow Warrior’s lower realm children, those banished from the upper realm because of maliciousness and spite, were behind this new global menace. While they did not hold the power of creation like their parents, they often maliciously meddled in the affairs of the elder gods’ favorite children. Erasing their parents’ creations from the face of Hokalita would please them greatly.
“Did the Shadow Warrior show you how to defeat this new enemy?” Wolf asked. It was impossible to discuss battle strategies when they did not know what they fought.
“He showed me your javaanee , the one who follows the white warriors’ ways.”
Wolf shook his head. He had only one j avaanee and Aiden was staunchly against his Kalikoia heritage.
“The Shadow Warrior should have chosen more wisely.” Wolf’s voice turned dry, and outright sacrilegious. It was never wise to question the elder gods. But Benioko knew Aiden refused to learn the ways of the Hee’woo’nee . “Aiden will not join us to neutralize this threat.”
The Old One released a long, tired sigh. “You must convince him. He is in great danger. Your javaanee is the arrow in this new war. Without him, the Hee’woo’nee and all the peoples who walk Hokalita will be no more.”
Then they were in trouble.
Wolf had spent many cycles trying to convince Aiden to join Shadow Mountain Command and adopt his tribal heritage. Time after time, Aiden had brushed aside the requests. Wolf had long since stopped asking. You could not force knowledge on those unwilling to hear.
“Your javaanee is in great danger. If those who created this new enemy find him, he will cross the veil and the Hee’woo’nee will perish.” The Old One looked up; his hooded eyes sunken with concern. “You must find him and quickly. Others seek him. If they reach him first, this war is lost.” He gestured weakly at the huge computer monitor that stretched across the far wall. A map of Tajikistan and the Karategin Mountains filled the screen. “You will find him there. Choose your men and go. Quickly. Take your javaacee and the new Thunderbird . Aiden will have need of your sister’s Hee-Hee-Thae magic and your new toy’s speed and veiling.”
Aiden would need healing? And not just any healing, but from Kait, who was the strongest healer among the Hee’woo’nee ? This was unwelcome news.
Yet, his gift of future sight had not warned him of a threat to Aiden. Not this time.
Wolf frowned, unease stirring. Three cycles ago, the future sight gift had failed him, and Jude had died. Aiden’s fate could not echo his anisbecco ’s.
According to Benioko, Aiden’s death would end the world.
Day 2 Vahdat, Tajikistan
In the past, when Aiden spun up for an op, he did so with a focused mind. A good operator—and he was a damn good one—knew that distractions led to death. But this time…fuck…strategies aimed at convincing Demi not to dump him plagued his thoughts.
He was too damn distracted, which didn’t bode well for his survival.
“The chopper will drop you eight klicks from your target.”
It was zero-one-hundred, half an hour from go, and he found it impossible to concentrate on the final mission brief. The news he was in line for a Dear Aiden speech kept swirling through his mind. But it didn’t help that Dipshit Dwight Dawson was giving the briefing. The CIA analyst charged with monitoring this region of Tajikistan had the worst voice ever. Didn’t the Farm teach their agents not to bore their audience into a stupor? This particular spook spoke in a low, droning monotone. No pitches or valleys. Just an endless, dull buzz.
“Our target is Grigory Kuznetsov, an arms dealer brokering stolen military tech.” The most boring spook alive continued.
Dipshit Dawson didn’t look like your average spook. And yeah, spooks had a look. Nondescript, flat-faced, cold-eyed. Not Dawson, though. Nope, he was tall and lanky, with warm blue eyes.
“…Karaveht is the smallest of the villages on…”
To his right, Squirrel’s shorn head bobbed, the bronze and red scales of his rattler tattoo shimmering. Aiden leaned over and drove an elbow into his buddy’s muscled ribs. If he had to listen, so did the rest of his crew. Squirrel grunted and jolted upright.
The spook kept droning on and on, periodically tapping his pointer against the huge monitor that stretched across the front of the command tent. The monitor displayed satellite images of a small settlement tucked between steep, rocky hills. Mud-brick houses lined both sides of a dirt road. Metal roofs, along with the jagged hills surrounding them, were splashed with white from the recent snow.
Their target was Karaveht, a remote village amid the Karategin Mountains. While a narrow road ran through the village, connecting it to the rest of the towns along the Rasht Valley, they wouldn’t be using it. The road would expose them to unwelcome eyes. Instead, they’d insert into town by climbing and descending the hills surrounding it.
According to Dipshit Dawson, Karaveht was small. Only two hundred and fifty souls called it home. It seemed odd that Kuznetsov had set up shop there. For fuck’s sake, the place didn’t even have internet, or electricity. Gasoline generators powered what electrical resources they had. But perhaps that was the point. Who’d expect high-tech military arms for sale in such a low-tech place?
“You’re looking for the schematics and prototypes of the A7V02 Drone. Be advised that Grigory Kuznetsov and his men have access to the deadliest weapons available,” Dwight Dawson droned on.
Aiden scoffed beneath his breath. What the fuck? Did the bastard really think they’d underestimate one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world? News flash, he and his brothers never underestimated their targets.
“Once you’ve neutralized Kuznetsov and his men, search the target’s dwelling. Remove any prototypes, schematics, and hard drives.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. They’d been doing retrieval ops for years. Nobody had to tell them how to do their damn jobs.
“Who has the AN-M14 grenades?”
Grub, the squad’s explosives technician, raised his hand and offered a two-finger wave. “Checked out five of ‘em.”
“Five? One is overkill in this case,” the spook said.
Grub shrugged. “Could be all sorts of shit that needs incinerating once we’re on site.”
Truer words had never been spoken. It was best not to assume the intel gathered for this op painted the entire picture.
“Questions?” The spook glanced at his watch.
“Yeah, what’s with the continuous video feed?” Aiden split his questioning look between the spook and Trevor Montana, his Lieutenant Commander.
Hannah Montana, as they called him behind his back, was a tier one prick, more concerned with toeing the company line than sticking up for the men beneath his command. Zane Winters, his previous CO, was by far the better man. But then, his loyalty and morality led to his downfall.
“The camera feed is a direct order from WARCOM.” Montana shrugged. “It’s a thinner, lighter camera with a longer battery life. They’re testing its durability and battery charge in the field.”
Aiden shook his head in disgust. The standard cameras worked perfectly fine. What a waste of time and money. Should have known the order came directly from NAVSPECWARCOM or WARCOM for short. At least he wouldn’t be the one slogging through hours of snow crusted desert and wintery skies.