Downwinders: Blood Oath, Blood River Part 32

He let his body relax. "I know that," he said. "Doesn't bother me."

"Right," Deem said, smiling at him.

"Alright, I need to get back home," Awan said, rising from the table. He pulled out his wallet and tossed some money on the table. "My mom goes into surgery early tomorrow morning. You'll call me when you're done at the school?"

"We will," Winn said. "And thanks for this," he said, holding up the emblem.

"I hope your mom will be OK," Deem said. "What's the surgery for, if you don't mind my prying?"

"Gallbladder," Awan said. "She's been in pain for a while, so it's time to come out. She's never had surgery before, so she's scared. I promised I'd be there with her."

"Of course," Deem said. "I hope it all goes well."

"Thank you," Awan said. "Call me." He turned and walked out of the restaurant. Deem sat across from Winn, both of them holding the beaded emblem.

"So we're going to go into the lion's den?" Deem asked.

"Sounds like it," Winn said. "But I'm excited to try this." He held the emblem up and shook it. "Sounds like fun."

"I can't feel it now," Deem said. "The dizziness is past."

Winn placed the emblem to his forehead and pressed it there, surprising Deem. His eyes rolled back in his head. Deem reached forward, ready to catch his head if he fell forward. Instead, he slowly removed the circle from his head. His eyes rolled back into position, and he looked at Deem.

"That IS a trip," Winn said.

"It's hard to describe how it feels, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Kind of like...well, no...like..."

"Hard to describe, I know. Did you think about anything? What were you walling off?"

"Nothing. Didn't think about anything."

"Great. Maybe it'll wall off everything, by default."

"Or nothing. How would we know, unless someone who can read minds tested us."

"We could try it with Carma," Deem said. "I think she can read minds. A little, at least."

"We could stop there on the way out to Kanab tomorrow, and see. Do you want to leave them in, until then?"

"G.o.d no!" Deem said. She placed the emblem at the back of her head and pressed. Her head fell forward onto the table, making the dishes jump.

"f.u.c.k," Winn said, sliding out of his side of the booth and back in next to Deem. He raised her head off the table and laid it on his shoulder. The waitress walked by again, and gave Winn a patronizing look that seemed to say, "I'm so sorry it happened again, but I'm glad I don't have that f.u.c.king disease!"

Winn smiled at the waitress as he patted Deem's cheek, trying to revive her. After a moment she opened her eyes.

"Please don't do that again in public," Winn said.

"I pa.s.sed out again?" Deem asked.

"Yes."

"And you came to my rescue," she said, noticing how close he was sitting next to her. She patted his leg under the table. "I'm OK now, big boy. Thank you."

"Did it come out?" Winn asked.

They both dropped briefly into the River. Deem's emblem turned into the small snake, twisting in her palm and rising its head to slide around her little finger. Winn's emblem remained a beaded circle.

"Apparently so," Deem said.

"How'd it feel?"

"The same. Blackout. Now I feel like I have a headache growing deep in there."

"I imagine pulling a wall out of your head would be a little painful. I'm leaving mine in until later tonight." He slid out of the booth from Deem and back to his original side. "I've got someone coming over tonight, and I want to see what it feels like while having s.e.x."

"That's so stupid," Deem said. "It walls off memories. It's not extascy."

"How would you know about extascy?" Winn asked, smiling at her.

"We learned about it in health cla.s.s," Deem replied. "If you think that snake in your head is going to make you have a more intense o.r.g.a.s.m or something, you're crazy. It just walls off memories."

"I was thinking more about having it wall off memories about the best s.e.x I've ever had," Winn said, poking at a couple of lingering French fries on his plate. "It would make even s.h.i.+tty s.e.x seem great."

Deem rolled her eyes. "Let's go," she said, sliding out of the booth. "It'll be after midnight before we get home. And we've got a big day tomorrow." She slipped the emblem into her pants pocket and pulled out her phone.

"Texting mommy?" Winn said as he stood up and paid the tab.

"She worries about me," Deem said. "And I worry about her, since Dad died. Pick me up tomorrow? For the drive to Kanab?"

"Sure," Winn said, pus.h.i.+ng open the doors to the restaurant and walking outside. "Kanab will take two hours, so I'll be to your place around nine."

They walked out to Winn's Jeep, Deem texting as she walked. Winn stopped when he saw the Jeep, and Deem b.u.mped into him.

"What the f.u.c.k, Winn?" Deem said. She saw him standing still, staring at the Jeep. She walked around him, and saw what he was looking at.

On top of the Jeep was a large animal with black hair. It was lying on its side, its head draped over the winds.h.i.+eld. Its throat had been cut, and the blood had drained down the winds.h.i.+eld and under the hood. Someone had used their finger to write two words in the blood: SUFFER. ATONE.

"Fuuuuck!" Deem said, turning to Winn. He stared at the car, unmoving. She turned to look around the parking lot, scanning for who might have done the act. Aside from a dozen other cars spread throughout the lot, she saw nothing.

"Who would do this?" she asked, walking up to the car. Winn slowly followed her. She could see that the animal was a large dog, a black lab.

"Suffer?" she said, turning back to Winn. "What the f.u.c.k? Why?"

"I don't know," Winn said. "But I can guess."

Chapter Fifteen.

Deem swung at the alarm clock, hitting the snooze. After removing the dog from the Jeep, they'd driven to a car wash. She'd told Winn to take an extra hour, and pick her up at ten. She wanted to sleep in.

Now the extra hour didn't seem enough. It was nine-thirty, and she had just enough time to get up and shower before Winn would arrive. She groggily dropped one foot out of the bed and onto the carpet in her room, then swung herself up and used the momentum of the swing to propel herself into the bathroom.

After cleaning up and dressing she walked downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen.

"Good morning, dear," Margie said.

"Aunt Virginia get off OK?" Deem asked.

"Yes. I wish you would have gotten up and said goodbye to her."

"I said goodbye last night, mom. Six a.m. is way too early." Deem removed a box of cereal from a cabinet and poured a bowl.

"She wanted to get an early start. Oh, some mail came for you this morning."

"I never get mail," Deem said, walking over to the envelope her mother had set aside for her.

"It's from the church," Margie said, watching over her shoulder as she opened it. "So it must be important."

Deem read the letter. Before she could get past the first sentence, she heard Winn honking outside.

"Gotta go, Mom," Deem said, folding the letter back up.

"What did it say?" Margie asked, following her as she walked to the front door.

"I don't know," Deem said, opening the door and running out. "I'll let you know. Bye!"

She shut the door and ran to Winn's Jeep. She could still see some blood caked below the winds.h.i.+eld wipers.

"You gotta get another car wash," Deem said as she got in.

"Yeah, I saw that this morning once it was light," Winn said. "What's that in your hand?"

"Oh, a letter I just got," Deem said, strapping the seat belt around her as Winn took off. "It's from the church."

"The church?" Winn said.

"Yeah," Deem said, turning the envelope toward him. She pointed her finger at the logo in the left corner of the envelope. "Official."

"What's it say?" he asked.

"Don't know, haven't read it yet," she said, opening it up once again. She unfolded the stationery. Winn could see another logo at the top of the page. He let her read silently for a minute.

"They're excommunicating me," Deem said, dropping her hands to her sides. "I'm being called to a Bishop's Court."

"So what?" Winn said. "You hate it anyway."

"This is to hurt my mother," Deem said. "This will devastate her. To her it means I won't be in heaven with her, in the next life. This is Dayton's doing, to get back at me by hurting her. What an a.s.shole."

"What's a Bishop's Court?" Winn asked.

"They haul you in front of a group of men and grill you," Deem said. "I heard my father talk about it, since he sat in on many of them. It's usually reserved for criminals, adulterers, and apostates."

"Well, you're certainly an apostate," Winn said.

"Not really," Deem said. "I'm just a jack Mormon. I don't go to church, I'm not active, but they don't excommunicate inactives. Half the church is inactive, they'd be half as big if they did that. They only excommunicate when they want to make a point."

"Are you going to go to the Bishop's Court?" Winn asked.

"Oh, h.e.l.l no," Deem said. "That's playing by their rules. I'm not going to sit there and defend myself while the fix is in. They'll ex me in absentia. And excommunicating the daughter of a former stake president is a big deal, this'll be talked about. I don't care, really. It's my mom. She'll bear the brunt of it. Dayton knew it would hurt her. The f.u.c.ker."

"She'll survive," Winn said.

"I don't know," Deem said, looking out the window. "You don't know how hard they make it. Her whole social structure is the ladies in her ward. An excommunicated daughter means she was a bad mother. Some of them will shun her, others will treat her differently. She's used to a certain level of respect because my father was a stake president. That'll all be gone now. That will be h.e.l.l for her."

"After we take care of this shaman," Winn said, "we'll figure out how to get back at Dayton. We'll make him pay for hurting your mom like this."

"t.i.t for tat," Deem said. "I wonder what the charges are."

"Charges?"

"Oh, they have to accuse you of something in order to do this," Deem said, shaking the paper between them in the car. "They've trumped up something. It would be interesting to hear what."

Winn wound his way through the gorge, slowing for trucks and watching out for cops. Deem looked up at the steep mountain faces, some natural, others carved for the freeway. Whenever she drove through the gorge, she always thought she saw small cave openings in the rocks, high up on the sides of the mountain. It looked like hundreds of places to hide. As a little girl, she'd considered hiding in those imagined caves when she contemplated running away after fighting with her parents. Now she wanted to climb up into one of them, and just leave all of the turmoil behind. The shaman, the journals, Claude, the skinrunner, the excommunication, her mother, Awan, and Winn just hole up in one of those caves up there with a supply of food, and ride it out, wait for it all to pa.s.s. But she knew that wasn't going to happen. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She'd fought alongside Winn as they tackled zombighosts and other creatures over the years, but meeting Claude and learning of her father's involvement with the secret council had caused her to grow up fast. The adults she trusted as a child were turning out to be false, untrustworthy, cruel. Can't run away from this, she thought. Time to woman up.

"You OK?" Winn asked.

"I'm alright," Deem said. "I guess having your history ripped out from under you makes more of an impact than I thought it would."

"That's how they want you to feel," Winn said. "Your history is still yours. You just have a more honest perspective on it now. That's better. That's healthier. Maybe they did you a favor."

"That's why they call it a 'Court of Love,'" she replied.

"You're s.h.i.+tting me," Winn said.

"No, really," Deem said. "They call this excommunication court a 'Court of Love.'"

"Oh, that's funny," Winn said. "And kinda creepy at the same time!"

"I know!" Deem said. "I always thought it was strange when I heard someone call it that."