Awan pulled the object from the man's back, noticing the red mark it left behind.

"What's that you put on him?" Ernie asked.

"Just a little payback, Ernie," Awan said. "For how kind you and Delmar have been to everyone in town."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ernie said, starting to push himself up from the floor.

Awan walked to the trailer door, and Winn and Deem followed. "You and Delmar are out of business, Ernie," Awan said. "And if you try anything else stupid, I got a lot more whoopa.s.s I can bring around on you."

"Whatever you say, Awan," Ernie said snickering, reaching behind his back to locate the strap of his overalls.

Deem and Winn walked out the door, and Awan followed, slamming the door shut behind him.

"He thinks your whoopa.s.s was knocking Delmar out," Winn said to Awan as they walked back to his truck.

"Would love to see the looks on their faces when the Caller tells them the blood is rejected," Awan said.

"I'll bet they still don't figure it out, even then," Deem said.

"You're probably right," Awan replied. "Those two are dumber than a box of hair."

"That was too easy," Winn said as they sped back to Vegas in his Jeep. Several dust devils were spinning in the distance. Winn could hear Deem slurping at the bottom of her Big Gulp, and he knew she'd want another one soon. There would be nowhere to stop for miles. She'd have to wait.

"I think they must have just exhaled from a bong hit as we walked in the door," Deem said. "I can smell it on my clothes. My mom's gonna notice if I walk in the house like this."

"Poor dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Winn said. "Awan told me he planned to mail them a letter in a couple of days, explaining that they'd need a doctor soon if they wanted to stay alive. Who knows if they even know how to read."

"They're in trouble," Deem replied. "Dialysis isn't cheap."

"They should be able to afford it with all of the money they stole from people."

"If there's any left," Deem said, and paused, looking out the window. "Doesn't it bother you to do something like that? I mean, actions have consequences. They're permanently damaged for the rest of their lives."

"Those two a.s.sholes?" Winn asked. "Nah, doesn't bother me at all. They had it coming."

"We're taking Awan's word for it," Deem said. "What if he's wrong? What if he exaggerated their role? What if they're not as bad as he made them out to be? What then?"

"Do you think Awan would do that?" Winn asked. "After all he did for us with the skinrunners?"

Winn looked at Deem. She seemed deep in thought, as though she was mulling over a moral dilemma that was really bothering her. Winn knew that moral dilemmas were the soup du jour for Deem lately, having survived a close call with excommunication from the LDS church. Deem was really a jack Mormon, completely inactive in the church, even though her father had been a prominent Stake President before he died.

"No, I don't think Awan would lie to us," she replied. "But sometimes there are unintended consequences, even when you think you're doing the right thing."

Isn't that the truth, Winn thought. He'd had one or two sc.r.a.pes with unintended consequences over the years, and knew they could derail the best laid plans.

"And besides that," Deem continued, "we form our opinions of people based on our interactions with them in the present, and take their word about their past. We've known Awan for a few weeks, but who knows his real story. Who knows anyone's real story?"

"That's pretty philosophical," Winn said, "and bordering on cynical. I understand you've had your faith in people shaken lately. But you don't want to become a cynic."

"Why not?" Deem said, sitting up a little defensively. "You and I have known each other for, what, two years? Three? Before that, you might have been a felon or an escaped convict for all I know."

"I'm not," Winn said.

"It's not like I checked," Deem said. "I just take your word for it. And you're not exactly forthcoming about your past. There are times when I feel I hardly know you. And we just helped someone we've known for barely a month damage two people's kidneys for life!"

"I trust Awan," Winn said, remembering the talk the two of them had in the motel room in Fallon, after they collected an ingredient for the blood souring from a nearby cave. Awan opened up about some of his life during that conversation, and Deem hadn't heard any of it. Winn wasn't about to share it with her, either. It was personal stuff, things Awan felt comfortable telling Winn after he learned that Winn was bis.e.xual. It helped build a bond of trust between the two. If Awan wanted Deem to know those things, he'd have to tell her himself. Winn wasn't going to betray a trust. "Your problem is you second guess yourself too much."

"I'm not saying I don't trust him," Deem said. "I guess I do. He seems like a straight-up guy. But... " She paused. "There's no part of you that wonders if what we just did was right?"

"Nope," Winn said. "f.u.c.kers had it coming."

Deem rolled her eyes and cracked the window. The cabin quickly filled with hot air and Winn saw Deem's hair fly around her head. "I want to try and get this pot smell off my clothes before we get home," she said.

After a quick stop in North Vegas to let Deem refill her soda, they shot straight for Moapa. Winn parked his Jeep next to Deem's pickup truck in the driveway to his trailer. Even though it was dusk, hot dry air a.s.saulted them when they opened the doors to the Jeep, and Deem hurried to get into her truck and crank the A/C. Winn waved goodbye as she drove off to her home in Mesquite, a half hour away.

He pulled his shirt up and over his head and walked into his trailer. He turned on the cooler and retrieved a beer from the fridge. Then he walked back outside to sit at his outdoor table a large, overturned cable spindle. He put his boots up on it, and rocked back a little in the camping chair, slipping the cold beer bottle into the chair's beverage holder. He lit a cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke straight up into the air. Bats were dancing overhead, sucking up the day's insects. A couple of early stars were out, and more seemed to appear the longer he looked.

He glanced at his trailer the one he bought just after he sold his mother's. When she died, the only thing of value she left was her trailer. He knew he couldn't keep living in it; it reminded him too much of her. So he sold it and bought another. It was planted in the exact spot where her trailer had stood, after they moved to Moapa from Tucson.

The wind picked up a little, offering a moment of relief from the heat. Winn felt the sweat on his body soak in the air, cooling him. A little dust blew up from the ground under the spindle, into his face, and he coughed.

I should never have spread her ashes here, he thought, the same thing he thought whenever it was dusty outside and it blew in his face. I could have taken them somewhere else, Lake Mead, or Snow Canyon, somewhere like that. But no, I had to be lazy and spread them right here, thinking this was all she deserved. Now she invades my lungs every time the wind kicks up. Still bugging me from the grave.

He crushed the cigarette into an ashtray on the table and got up, pulling his beer from the cup holder. He walked into the trailer. The cooler didn't take long to make the air in the trailer tolerable. He kicked off his boots, letting them fall on the kitchen floor, and walked back to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. He started the shower, and waited for the water to reach the right temperature.

He looked down at himself, then up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Exposed. Deem seemed to think she didn't know that much about me, he thought. She doesn't need to know everything. She knows about my mother, that she was gifted, that she was absent. Deem freaks out about anything s.e.xual, so there's no point in telling her about the women or the men I'm seeing. I hope she knows I'm loyal to her. I'd help her with anything she needed, and I think she'd do the same for me. But she doesn't need to know everything about me. Everyone has some things they keep to themselves. There are some things that don't need to be told.

He got into the shower and washed the day away, letting the water run over him and cool him down. He felt a hundred percent better.

After he dried off, he walked back to his bedroom, still naked, and laid down on the bed, letting the air from the cooler blow over him. He reached for the clicker and turned on the TV, flipping through channels, looking for something to take his mind off Deem's conversation. The more he tried to avoid it, the more it bothered him. 'There are times when I feel like I hardly know you,' she said, like she wanted to know more. Should I change that? Should she learn more about me? She may not like what she learns. And what was all that about unintended consequences?

He began to feel a little sick as dread washed over him. He closed his eyes. For a moment he panicked, worried that sleeping would invite the horrors from the past, but then he relaxed, remembering that the horrors were gone. Paid for. They hadn't come in years. There was no reason to fear sleeping anymore; they had been banished a long time ago, and sleeping had been safe for over a decade now.

Still, he couldn't stop the dreaming, and the moment he closed his eyes always seemed to unnerve him, afraid of what the night might bring. Idiot, he thought. You fixed it, he won't be there. What was the point of paying the price if you continually imagine him showing up?

Carma raised a wine gla.s.s and said, "To Awan and his team! Indian Springs owes you all a debt of grat.i.tude that they have no idea they've incurred, and will never repay. But I intend to repay you, with a piece of pecan pie drizzled with a warm rum sauce and whipped cream!"

There were groans around the table as people contemplated trying to eat more. Carma had already stuffed them with savory pies. Wine gla.s.ses clinked, and Deem said, "Honestly, Carma, I can't eat another bite!"

"Now I know you're lying, and you're so awfully thin, my dear," Carma replied. "A man likes a little something he can hold on to." Deem began to blush. "These pecans were grown in the orchard right outside, and they have properties that will make you irresistible to men."

"I'll have a piece," Winn said. Deem looked up at him and snickered. He enjoyed saving her from situations that embarra.s.sed her, though he wasn't above creating those same situations from time to time.

"Excellent!" Carma said, clapping her hands together. "I'll dish it up in a little bit, so prepare yourselves!"

"I don't know what you put in these pies," Winn said, forking another lump of meat and crust into his already stuffed mouth. "They're sick!"

Carma turned to Deem. "That's good, right?"

"Yes, very good," Deem said.

Carma raised a hand to her forehead, rubbing it. "It's been incredibly difficult to keep up with current vernacular over the years, but I must say, I have tried my best. 'Cool' was extremely confusing for me, but now I think I've got it down. It means the opposite, right? My pies don't make him sick, right?"

"Correct," Deem a.s.sured her.

"It's like, your pies are so good, it's sickening," Winn said. "Are you sure there isn't some Sweeney Todd action going on here?"

"I a.s.sure you there is nothing human in these pies!" Carma said, smiling. "Well, not that I'm aware of, at any rate. Deem, more wine?"

"I think I've had enough wine, too," Deem said.

"You've certainly developed a taste for it, haven't you?" Carma said. "And now that you're not excommunicated, you'll have to repent for each and every gulp!" She smiled.

"I'm going to wait for a while, and repent after I've got a good batch of sins built up," Deem said.

"That'll take years," Winn cracked.

"Awan, how long before the blood souring takes? Is it immediate?" Carma asked.

"Yes," Awan answered. "It'll taint their offerings right away, they'll all be rejected. The Callers will abandon them. I'm going to go around town and tell people they can stop paying. It'll take longer for the kidney trouble to show up."

"I appreciate that you don't want to kill them outright," Carma said, leaning forward and pouring another gla.s.s of wine for Deem, who tried to object but was ignored. "Back in the day people would find themselves strung up or cut for the littlest offenses. Things seem so much more civilized now. Why don't all of you take your wine gla.s.ses into the sitting room, and we'll relax and chat in there for a while. I love these chairs, but my b.u.t.t hurts after more than an hour in them." Carma immediately rose from the table and grabbed her gla.s.s, walking into the other room, leaving the others behind.

Winn noticed that Deem seemed a little wobbly as she stood. "If you decide to drink that gla.s.s Carma just poured for you, just sip at it," he said.

"Of course she's going to drink it!" Carma hollered from the other room.

"I'll go slow," Deem said, looking at Winn and smiling. "So this is what feeling drunk is?"

"Yes," Winn said, walking around the table and taking her by the hand. "And you don't want to go any further, or you'll know what praying to the porcelain G.o.d is."

"Huh?" she said, following him into the sitting room.

"Trust me, you don't want to know," Awan said, following her.

They walked down a couple of steps and landed in the room filled with sofas and chairs. Winn watched as Deem set her gla.s.s carefully on a side table and plopped into her favorite chair. Winn dropped onto a sofa and Awan sat next to him.

"G.o.d, I love this view!" Deem said, staring out the large floor to ceiling windows that faced the back yard and the hill that rose dramatically behind the house, lit with little yard lights. Bugs hovered around the lights and she could see bats darting back and forth, snapping up insects.

"I talked with Lyman earlier today," Carma said, entering the room with a tray filled with cordials. She set the tray down on a table near the windows. "Help yourself to any of these you want." She walked to an oversized chair and sat in it. "He was wondering, Deem, if you'd be willing to help him out with a little project."

"What?" Deem asked.

"Naturally he asked me to have you talk to him about it yourself," Carma said. "You know how he likes you."

"What time?" Deem asked, blushing again.

Carma checked her watch. "Let's see, it's just after nine, and the moon's out around two. About five hours from now. I hope you can stay."

"Sure," Deem said, leaning back in her chair.

"Lyman does seem to have his finger on the pulse of what's happening around here," Awan said. "And he seems highly intuitive. I'm still impressed on how he picked up on Winn."

"That's right," Deem said. "He was the one who knew about you being 'blank,' just from meeting you. It's what wound up saving us from Ninth Sign."

"Did you ever figure out what that was about?" Carma asked Winn. "Why you're a blank? We didn't talk much about it after it happened."

Winn considered how to respond. When he'd first found out he was blank, and was used to hide things from Ninth Sign, he felt embarra.s.sed. Although it surprisingly wound up being an a.s.set in that case, he always figured his deficiency would be a liability, and he still worried that it might hamper his ability to help Deem and Awan going forward.

Deem's words to him the other night about not knowing much about him had been rattling around in his mind, and the mixture of the company and the wine made him feel relaxed, as though he could open up to these people without fear of judgment or repercussion.

"Well, I have been thinking about that," he said. "And I think I know why I'm blank."

"You do?" Awan asked. "Why?"

"Well, it's a long story," Winn said. "And you may not like it."

"Oh, I'm sure I will like it!" Carma said with enthusiasm, delighted at the prospect of Winn telling a tale. "Doesn't matter how it ends. I'll like it."

"I'm warning you, it's long," Winn said.

Deem closed her eyes and sunk further into her chair. "I'd like nothing better right now than to relax and hear it," she said.

"Me too," Awan said.

"Alright," Winn said. "If you insist."

"I insist!" Carma said, jumping out of her chair. "Just let me adjust the lights down in here. This room is too brightly lit for a good long story!" She walked to a dimmer on the wall, and lowered the level of light coming from the overhead fixtures. The lights outside became brighter, and Carma walked back to her chair. "There we go. Alright, Winn, begin!"

Winn took a deep breath and exhaled. "When I was eleven, my mother and I lived in a trailer court outside of Tucson..."

This has been a complimentary first chapter of the next book in The Downwinders series, The Impossible Coin.

Enjoy the rest of the novel by downloading your complete copy from Amazon.com!.

By the author:.

The Downwinders series:.

Blood Oath, Blood River.