Chapter Thirty-Two

The Binders Return

We journeyed southwest, taking to the roadway and cutting across an occasional yard. My feet felt surprisingly good in the well-padded leather boots, and I could keep up with Light’s brisk pace. The black-eyed hunter sped through serpentine twists despite his injury. Light sniffed at the air constantly, directing our path according to his olfactory cues. Sometimes he voiced a guttural measure of concern, which we heeded. A pale sun lit the sky behind us, setting the hoarfrost alight upon yellow grass.

“How did the Binders track us to your cabin?” I asked, short of breath from the brisk pace.

“I don’t understand it,” Jean confessed reluctantly. “They are not skilled hunters in the traditional sense. Light is far better at sniffing them out than they are at sniffing us out.” Light seemed to prance a few steps at the compliment, or perhaps it was just my imagination. He paused infrequently, lifting his injured paw mere seconds before resuming our rapid pace. I continued to flex my right hand, amazed that the acute pain was subsiding. I wondered if Isabel would be able to help Light. A flash of understanding thundered in my brain like lightning.

“I dreamed of Isabel last night,” I revealed with excitement. In our mad rush I had forgotten to share this information with Jean. “Your card trick worked.”

Jean’s expression remained unchanged. “Tell me everything,” he demanded without sharing my enthusiasm.

We waded across a field of heather and fireweed, changing course often but generally heading toward the town of Sister Bay. We avoided Dark Woods. They would look for us there first.

The roads were deserted this time of morning, and the sun rose above the treetops. The morning was cold, but the frost did not quite bite. The Wisconsin air smelled clean and slightly sweet.

I described the dream to the Torch Bearer. The ring of Isabel’s sense of urgency was fresh in my mind, as was the white searing pain of my hand where she touched me. As I talked, both Jean and Light made more frequent turns, sensing something in the air that I could not. I told him about the new card.

“The fractured sunset,” he mumbled, recalling the secret of Miskenupik art. He talked to himself as we hurried onward and seemed to have stumbled upon a clue.

“The ‘compass’ used by the Binders of Souls points to the four false directions, each inscribed with the names of the Nizad.” Jean spoke of their navigational tool with disgust.

“The four Pillars of the Great Deceiver,” I said.

“The mark of the Broken Path is aligned with these four,” he explained. “If you can recognize their symbol, perhaps you are triggering some sort of Miskenupik radar. Maybe that is how they found us this morning. We’ve got to keep you safe until you can rescue the ninth child.”

Isaac! How am I going to rescue him if I am being tracked by demons? Will I lead them right to him? How is he going to find me?

As we made our way southward I detected a foul scent arising from somewhere up ahead. The smell was similar to rotting possum.

“There is much about them I do not know,” Jean explained. He had been using his ash staff as a walking stick but suddenly picked it up and rested it upon his shoulders, mimicking a scarecrow’s posture. “But I do know how to sever their connection to our world.”

Light stopped suddenly, turning to face a faded white clapboard farmhouse several hundred yards in front of us. His growl was menacing, and I saw the object of his attention. Two tall, gray-cloaked figures walked toward us from the weatherbeaten front porch.

Their movements were eerily sinuous, and they floated more than walked through the heather. These were creatures that haunted lightless places and darkened dreams. They may have been living things at one time, but that time had long since passed. They were searching for me and their search was over.

Their laughter shattered my thoughts, sounding triumphant and unearthly. I closed my ears to stop the pain of hearing, but the creatures laughed with greater ferocity. Their sneers suggested ridicule, but their voices were the screams of terrified children. Their wailing echoed off the splintered walls of the abandoned house.

Jean and Light moved quickly toward the two Binders, placing themselves protectively between the monstrous hunters and myself. Light showed no outward sign of injury as he deftly leaped toward the Miskenupik to his left, narrowly missing the monster’s throat as it floated serpentine to the right. Jean expertly wove great circles of violent air as he swung his ash staff, all the while descending upon the Binder before him. Neither of my companions showed fear, and I wondered where they found the courage to face creatures from beyond our world.

As I watched the great battle unfold, a sense of relief washed through me as the two Binders slowly retreated toward the abandoned home, which is to say, away from me. The two Miskenupik were soon overwhelmed by the mighty hunters. When I heard the creature behind me, my relief turned to dread.

“Last night my mommy and I were coming from the store, and I saw the stars.” Both the voice and the words arose from a buried memory. My memory. The voice belonged to a patient of mine who died several years ago. I covered my ears to block the theft, but it continued mercilessly.

“I thought they were angels at first, but then they flew away.” The Binder then shrieked a hideous laugh full of hatred and contempt. He moved toward me slowly, his black eyes filled with cruelty.

The demon pulled a wooden object from beneath its smoky gray cloak. As it neared I could see the mark of the Broken Path seared upon its rotting, blue-gray flesh. The smell of decay became overwhelming, and I turned away to vomit but the creature caught my neck with its bony fingers.

“You will not look away from us,” it spoke with arrogant disgust. “You have seen our Meechehsow before, yes?”

As it spoke, the Binder lifted the reedlike instrument in front of my face, all the while grasping my neck with its assassin’s fingers. The instrument was thin, fragile-appearing, and about the length of my hand. Before it placed the mouthpiece upon its blue, decomposing lips, it offered me the English translation.

“In Algonquin Meechehsow means ‘to eat’.” Then it laughed again, this time with the timbre of screaming infants.

The creature placed one end of the Meechehsow upon my throat. I struggled to free myself, but its skeletal fingers clamped tightly around my neck. I nearly suffocated. I batted at its arms with my hands to no more effect than pounding fists upon a stone wall.

“Now you will know how it feels to be lost in eternal darkness.” The Binder of Souls sounded the first notes from the fragile mouthpiece.

The dissonant notes vibrated against my throat and created the warbled sound of music crossing a great span of time. The song was soulless and angry, percussive but not melodic, and I developed the dreaded sensation that the vibratory instrument was being sucked rather than blown. It felt as if the demon were vacuuming my entire spine and brainstem toward my throat, severing every nerve along the way. I tried to scream but could make no sound. I felt myself being pulled into the black music, the percussive notes eating at my soul.

I looked up at the sun, clear and orange in the late morning sky and remembered I was the Fire Walker. Isabel had called me forth, across the ages, to walk the Path of Fire that connected all life. I reached for the frontmost Kesemanetow in my pocket and immediately felt the electric quality of the card. I lifted it to eye level and was relieved to see I had chosen the right card.

I reached my mind out toward the mark of the True Path as if it were an anchor and fought against the Binder’s pull. Its black eyes opened wide with anger and surprise, and it then doubled its effort, aspirating disjointed notes from the depths of my soul. I pulled back, imagining I was one with the Kesemanetow’s red path, immovable and timeless. The symbols within the card shifted their alignment. The painted fire became real.

I looked deep into the creature’s black eyes, imagining mine were filled with life’s orange embers.

I couldn’t speak, so I mouthed, “Fuck you.”

Its bony fingers began to tremble as the dissonant music became feeble. The Binder’s scream was bloodcurdling, and the Meechehsow shattered into a hundred splintered fragments.

Its black eyes burned with fury, and it wrapped the rotting flesh of its fingers more tightly around my neck. I filled myself with the sun until the connection between all living things throbbed with my own pulse. I held the creature’s stare with the fire of my own eyes and drove my thumb into its mark of the damned. I did not cringe with disgust when the flesh broke apart around my touch. The orange flame seared the creature’s throat at the mark.

Its scream was soundless. The demon couldn’t stop the smoke from billowing out of its new tracheostomy. Flames erupted from the hole, and the Miskenupik collapsed in upon itself into a smoldering mass of black feathers and charred fur. It liquified into ebony sludge and then oozed into the ground. Nothing was left of the lifeless creature, not even a mark where the fire had scorched the earth.

* * * *

Jean and Light inspected the dirt in front of me. Black and fertile, the earth had served generations of Wisconsin farmers with yields of barley, wheat, corn, and cherries. No trace remained of the battle that had taken place. Jean scratched at his dark hair inquisitively.

“It seems you have found a weapon against them,” he said without looking at me.

“I have,” I replied. I was going to tell him that I did not fully understand what I had done but held my tongue. I had reached a turning point in the battle and would no longer play the defenseless victim. I had no doubt that my lack of knowledge was my greatest liability but it would no longer define me. I was a Fire Walker and had defeated my first Binder.

Two small piles of ash remained where my companions had slain their assailants. Jean and Light both stared into the distance. Light sniffed at the air without raising his hackles, his voice silent.

“I think we have won this battle, Fire Walker,” Jean said. I nodded in assent.

“It feels good to kick some miscreant ass,” I confessed.

Jean led Light and me through an orchard of Montmorency cherry trees. Each dwarf trunk was crowned with over seven thousand tart cherries in the process of being harvested. I thought longingly about the Door County cherry pies that would arise from this harvest, but my current life didn’t have room for such nostalgia.

We soon reached a large fieldstone bearing the mark of the True Path. Jean was right. Once you knew where to look you could find the mark anywhere. We entered Dark Woods as three warriors. My feet felt good in Jean’s boots, my hand felt whole, and I walked tall.