“Well?” The hawk-woman turned a hard golden gaze toward Selena. “Why are you here?”
“I’m sorry ...” Selena began automatically.
“Have you done something to be sorry for?” asked another of the people. Selena had an impression of lizard quickness and blue-black lines, like a skink.
“I’m not sure,” Selena admitted. She swallowed. “I came with my friend Father Aguirre. He was the one who was going to speak to you. I don’t know what to say.”
“Start with the truth,” said Hawk.
“Yes, of course.” Selena couldn’t imagine a lie standing up to those piercing golden eyes. She wondered if mice often felt inadequate before Hawk ate them. “I—I came because Snake-Eater sent me here. He’s been harassing me. He killed Merv. He was, um, a peacock.” She looked from face to face but saw no one gaudy and blue. Perhaps there weren’t enough peacocks in the area to make a god, if Father Aguirre was right about how things worked.
“Oh,Snake-Eater,” said someone else, sounding unimpressed. “Snake-Eater’s no trouble.”
“Not foryou,” hissed a scaled spirit with an old man’s face.
“And he took my friend Grandma Billy. Dragged her here, I think. I mean, to the spirit world. I just want her back safe. And for him to leave us alone.”
“So you want us to do something about it?” asked Hawk.
“Yes?” said Selena. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
One of the spirits snorted explosively. She had ocotillo branches for hair. “I don’t love Snake-Eater but this one apologizes too much.”
“Sor—oh,damn,” said Selena, which sent a few of the spirits into gales of laughter. Yellow Dog fell over on his back, snickering, and Copper took this as an indication to play and pounced on him. Selena didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’d expected the desert gods to be solemn and terrible, not bickering like old people at church bingo night. “If my friend Father Aguirre were here, he could explain it better.”
“Oh, the javelina child,” said Ocotillo. “He’s with his mother.”
“Probably getting yelled at,” added Skink.
Selena spread her hands helplessly. She’d had a vague mental image of Father Aguirre praying, probably in Latin, formally invoking the desert spirits, but it was hard to reconcile that with the people before her.
“Why don’t we just ask Snake-Eater what he’s doing?” asked a long-faced woman with a sheep’s square-pupiled eyes.
“Musssst we?” asked Old Man Rattlesnake on a long hiss.
“I’m surethatwill be enlightening,” said a new voice, which sounded oddly familiar. Selena looked for the speaker but couldn’t find them in the shifting circle of faces.
“Bring him here and let them fight!” said a high, thin voice with a buzz in it. “Put out each other’s eyes!” Selena didn’t even need to see the bright flash of red on the man’s throat to know that was Hummingbird.
“No one is putting out anyone’s eyes,” said Hawk. “At least not yet. Jackrabbit? Will you call him?”
Jackrabbit stood. He looked very human, but his eyes were wide and staring, and he wore only a loincloth. He raised his hands and began to sing.
His voice was low and eerie, rising in unexpected places. The other spirits joined in, making a crooning chant, with edges that seemed to waver into invisibility. Selena could not have begun to describe it, and suspected that parts of it were beyond the range of human ears to hear.
Jackrabbit raised his hands higher and now the song became insistent, calling, demanding an answer, demanding that someone come closer and closer still. Selena took an involuntary step forward, even though the song wasn’t directed at her. Copper cocked her head as if listening.
Jackrabbit clapped his hands together abruptly, and the song stopped. For a long, fraught moment, there was no sound at all, not even the crackle of the fire, and then Snake-Eater stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of light.
Unlike the other spirits, Snake-Eater did not look old. He looked as he had in Selena’s dreams, the ones she remembered and the others she was starting to. Tall and strong-featured, like a hero off the cover of one ofGrandma Billy’s romance novels, with a presence that seemed stronger than anyone else’s there.
It’s because we’re on his home ground, I expect. Oh Father, why did you ever think this would work?
The bird spirit’s gaze swept over the shadowy figures gathered around the fire, then landed on Selena with sudden heat. “So,” said Snake-Eater coldly. “You cannot best me on my home ground, so you think to run to other gods, like a child carrying tales?”
“Where’s Grandma Billy?” Selena demanded. “Where did you take her?”
Snake-Eater smiled. His teeth were very white against his tanned skin, but the shadow of a massive beak hung over him like a sword. “You were coming to confront me, were you not? I simply took her where she was going.”
