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I pondered his words, finally understanding that it was Kaya that Da Salle was after. The powerful female line, going back to her mother, the Native American witch who had fled with what could be the last occillite her tribe had. Did Da Salle have a vision that she was going to come for him? Had he tried to get rid of her before?

All of this struck me as likely.

I needed to help Kaya. No matter how powerful she was. I couldn’t let her walk into all of this alone.

Chapter 25

Kaya

As soon as Jack left, I took a bottle of whiskey over to Tamara’s place. It was the middle of the night but I needed to talk to her. It was urgent.

I banged on the door until she opened.

“What’s going on?” She opened the door, looking disheveled. She had obviously fallen asleep on the sofa. She reeked of alcohol and was clearly still drunk.

“What do you want?” she asked me. “It’s the middle of the fucking night!”

“I need your help,” I said. “There is literally no-one else I can ask. There is no single member of the tribe left. You are the only one.”

Tamara stared at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Ah... fuck off,” she said, trying to push me out the door.

Something came over me. It had something to do with this woman, the last known member of my mother’s tribe refusing to honor her people and our tribe. She was the only one with the knowledge I needed. I couldn’t search for this stuff on the internet.

“Who are you to turn me away?” I thundered at her.

“Who are you to refuse me knowledge?”

“Why are you denying your ancestors?”

I am not sure where the words came from, but they must have worked because she stopped moving, and started staring at me, her mouth slack.

“Who… who… are you?” she asked in a small voice.

“It’s Kaya, Tamara, you know me,” I said impatiently. “Look, I’ve got the occillite, I am wearing it as you told me to,” I took the stone out from under my top to show it to her.

She was muttering words now that I didn’t understand but knew to be from the tribe language.

“You’ve got to help me, Tamara, I don’t know the ways of my people. You are the only one who knows.”

She blinked, I wasn’t sure she understood.

“When the sho’qa’i had to take on some bad people or spirits. What would they do? To prepare? To plan?”

“The sho’qa’i?”

Tamara sat down on the sofa, sinking away into the cushions. She muttered again to herself.

“Tamara, think!”

“They would wait for the dark moon,” she said. “Best time to deal with evil spirits, to banish darkness.”

The dark moon? When the hell was that?

“They fasted, didn’t eat anything and went away to be alone to focus the mind.”

That sounded a lot like how I prepared for my work as an assassin when the time came to execute a plan. I would withdraw to some quiet place, go over the details and plan out all eventualities.