For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

Castle was determined to make the walk to the cliffside dwellings under his own power. He felt clammy, his lips had a faint numbness to them that he kept trying to rub away, and yet his heart thundered in his chest at a pace that seemed impossible. Kate, at his side, reached out to stabilize him, but the barest brush of sensation was insanity, an incessant buzzing.

He was glad of the heat as the path climbed slowly towards the canyon dwellings. The heat wrapped around him, heavy but dry, a perfect counterpoint to the damp chill clinging to his bones. He had an entourage with him, all volk, or Children of Katoyis as the native people called vampires: Dr Harris the Black Flint, there to monitor him; Michaela whom they called Trailing Smoke and whom he was certain was powerful in her blood family; his counselor Merritt who refused to let the tribe name him because he was Scottish and with folklore of his own; and two of the tribe who stood in for the Old Couple in the legend, a woman who only smiled at him, and a man who was blind and led along by his daughter, a fourteen year old girl who smacked her gum and sneered at every skittering lizard.

It was strange, and surreal, and silent. Especially silent. The girl who smacked her gum was the only sound coming from any of them as they trudged towards the cliffside dwellings, and the trek wasn't hard so much as hot and dusty, and time-consuming at this pace. The girl finally caught a lizard on a rock and brought it to her ear—Castle was bewildered when it latched onto her lobe and hung there, dangling like jewelry. The girl seemed supremely satisfied by this and turned with a haughty smirk back to the path, her hand on her grandfather's arm.

When they were in the shade of the carved stone dwellings, and the sun was sharply to the east, just risen, they could finally feel the cool of the previous evening slinking like shadows at the base of the cliff walls. Kate shivered and rubbed her arms; she had been sneaking looks at his face since he'd told her he felt it coming—his eyes had returned to their normal shade.

It was freaking her out. He couldn't help that. He'd thought the ice-white was pretty cool, but it looked like it wouldn't stay (which might be good if he didn't want to scare his mother and daughter, honestly).

Kate reached for him when they began mounting the stone steps, but he flinched backward so violently that he almost toppled from the stairs, and she quit trying to help after that. He didn't bother to apologize; she knew, and she'd said she understood, and the itching under his skin was so desperate that he couldn't think of how he might console her for his involuntary reactions.

He didn't mean to flinch. It was just that any touch on his skin felt like sandpaper. It went all the way into his teeth and brought tears to his eyes which he controlled only with brute force.

"This way," the blind man said. And for the first time, Castle wondered if perhaps the granddaughter wasn't actually leading him at all. They walked side by side, the Old Woman following behind, her fingers skimming the walls as if greeting old friends. She was wearing a pair of dusty jeans with dirt stains at the knees and a green cardigan; she looked as if they'd pulled her from her garden.

When they reached the base of a ladder, Castle could not believe they would all go up, but they did, single file, scaling the side of the canyon and the wall of an empty multi-tiered home. He was not sweating—there was a chill now in the air without the sun directly on them—and his grip was better than he expected.

Of course, he couldn't falter now. The second ladder was harder going, but as he looked above him, the two elderly members of their party were scaling the heights like mountain goats, without trouble. The Old Man had the milky eyes of cataracts left untreated, which, as Castle thought about it, would be a terrible oversight if true.

At the top, when he came over onto the stone, Dr Harris turned to look at him, as if his doubt could be sensed. But she merely gestured for him to proceed her through the narrow corridor of stone. The shadows were deeper here, and he hesitated to give a look back.

The dizzying height took his breath away.

Kate paused with him, the rest of the group was forced to as well. He stared out across the landscape, the yellow rock that seemed to curve with the regular lines of the old ruins, framed by the wilting green trees that stubbled the sand. He'd never seen such a strange confluence of desert and forest, as if one were giving way to the other, but neither could decide which would be allowed dominance.

In the far distance, almost camouflaged with the cloud-streaked blue sky, were the mountains. The white on their peaks met the white of the clouds, and the hazy distance rendered their slopes merely grey-blue shadows, washed denim against the horizon.

"Rick?"

"I didn't realize," he murmured, glancing at her and nodding to the view. "I had no idea where we were. That we've been living with this."

"It's surreal," she murmured. "Desert and mountains both. And between them, the canyon. These pueblos are incredible."

"It feels haunted."

She didn't disagree.

"This way," the elder said, interrupting their moment with his impatience.

Castle turned back to the narrow corridor. A hush had fallen over them as they'd climbed, and now walking between the black rectangles of doorways and over stone roofs that formed their path, Castle couldn't help but feel the mystery of the place.

No. Mystery was a cold case file and details that didn't add up.

This was sacred. The quiet. The mountains distant sentinels at their backs. The loneliness of the multi-story dwellings looming to either side of them. The well-worn stone under their shoes which reminded them they were not the first to travel here.

Then they got to the heart of the buildings, and the hand-cut stones under their feet widened into a kind of public square—the pueblo—and in the center of that, the stone circular pit—the kiva—which was their ceremonial site.

The steps going down into the kiva reminded him of the Jewish baths, the ones used for ritual immersion, the mikveh. He had seen them in Spain, medieval baths still in use, and at Roman dig sites where the ritual washings had been so evident in the foundations of long-gone palatial homes. Sacred space with steps down in the darkness.

The kiva here was filled with water, which he had not expected based on his hasty research. It was perfectly round, the stones reflecting in the dark water with the sun on its stillness. The bricks looked round, as they had in the center square that led to the kiva, a roundness that was incongruent with the harsh dark water.

The canyon walls were weathered, and sloped in places so that there was a natural roof over the kiva. The water did not move. He was alone now at the edge of the perfect circle of stones, and as he peered down, he saw the white-scar markings of petroglyphs just above the waterline. He saw many five-fingered hands, two birds beak to beak, a spiral like the design of a crop circle. Directly across from him: what looked like fangs, with two drops of blood.

They had climbed steps, and two ladders, and when he had looked out over the landscape, he had thought it was amazing. But here, standing at the top of the steps that went down into a cold dark water, the awe broke him.

He realized he was afraid. For the first time since he'd woken to Kate's angel of death visage, blood staining her mouth, he was vastly, deeply afraid.

The terror was a pit, like a kiva, and the still water held a dark monster in waiting:

himself.

"Walk in," Kate told him, her voice like the wind through the abandoned buildings at his back. "I'm right here with you."

He clenched his fists and lifted his gaze from the petroglyph of his fate, cast his eyes on each of the others, the Old Man and his granddaughter, the Gardening Woman with dirt under her gnarled fingernails, Aurora Harris in the guise of Black Flint, Michaela tall and straight, Merritt with a face that betrayed nothing—

Beyond them… there was something, a shimmer.

"Go on, Rick."

He turned to Kate, but he knew he had to do this without her influence. It had to be his choice, to walk into that water.

He stepped out of his shoes and laid them aside, stuffed his socks into them with a peculiar slow precision. Kate was doing the same, mirroring him a moment later; she would come in after him, as his progenitor. He turned back to the stone stairs and bent his knee to place his foot on the next step.

The water was like ice.

He didn't let himself stop, kept going down.

When it swallowed his feet, immediately the buzzing under his skin went quiet. The rawness was soothed, up to his knees, and he picked up his pace, going down deeper, farther, drawn to the center of the perfect circle, until it was climbing up his neck, pressing hard at his chest where his heart finally slowed. Filling the empty spaces, rising, the roar of water muffling the world as it rose over his head, filling his ears, whispering against his eyelashes, stroking his forehead, ruffling his hair, inviting him into their world.

Under the water, he opened his eyes.

—-xxx—-