But worse than their wire hair and rotten-meat lunch are their eyes. Both creatures have bulging eyeballs. Their irises are bright red, and blue veins crisscross the whites of their eyes like cracks in a boiled egg.
Is this what Mr. Charles looks like under his human costume? Yuck! No wonder he wears a disguise.
So far the two cackling vultures haven’t noticed me, too intent on their fight over whatever it is. I definitely don’t want to get close enough to know the details.
And then I spot something else. There’s a girl lying on the floor right beside the entrance, so close I could have tripped over her. She looks about my age and is wearing a traditional Navajo rug dress with moccasins and leg wraps that come up to her knees. But she’s made out of black rock the same way Rock Crystal Boy was made out of white rock. Her skin is smooth and flawless and glimmers in the firelight.
I’ve found the missing guardian of Dibé Nitsaa. But Black Jet Girl is as unmoving as the material she’s named after.
I bend down and try to shake her awake. No luck. She’s cold and hard to the touch. Then I see a tiny drop of water fall from the corner of her eye, cascade down her hard cheek, and pool in the corner of her mouth.
Black Jet Girl is frozen and scared, and my guess is those creepy buzzard creatures are to blame.
Łizhin hadn’t said anything about what to do if I found Black Jet Girl paralyzed. If the bird had known, surely she would have left me with more than a feather to work with.…
A feather! And just like that, I have a brilliant idea. If Black Jet Girl can cry, she’s not completely lost in there.
I pull the plume from my pocket and wave it under Black Jet Girl’s nose. Nothing happens at first, and I’m ready to give up on my not-so-brilliant-after-all idea. A moment later, Black Jet Girl sniffles and snuffles and, with one great heave, sneezes herself alive.
I owe Łizhin an apology. Her gift was exactly what I needed.
And then I realize the babbling buzzards have fallen silent. I slowly turn my head to look across the fire, and both monsters are staring directly at me.
Or maybe they aren’t, because their gaze seems to go right through me, as if they can’t see me at all.
“Who’s there?” one of them shouts, its voice a raspy croak.
“I don’t see anybody, brother,” its companion bleats, sounding annoyed.
“Of course you don’t, fool! You’re blind, just like me. But I heard something.” He shuffles a few feet in my direction. I stiffen. Black Jet Girl doesn’t seem to be thawed enough to move yet. I gently nudge her with my foot, hoping to help her along. She moans a little but still doesn’t open her eyes.
“There it is again!” the first buzzard croaks. “Check the girl!”
“The girl is fine, brother,” the other one protests. “We paralyzed her with our stare. Nothing can resist our stare!”
I feel a hand clutch my wrist, and I almost jump out of my skin. I look down and Black Jet Girl is awake. Her eyes are penetrating mine, trying to tell me something. She mouths a word at me.
“Feather?” I ask. I think that’s what she said.
“What’s that?” one the buzzards squawks. “Did you say ‘feather’?”
“No. Someone else did,” says his brother.
Black Jet Girl rolls her eyes at the two birdmen and raises herself a little to talk to me again. “Throw the feather into the fire,” she manages to whisper before she drops back down, looking exhausted.
“I definitely heard it that time,” says a buzzard.
“Speak up, whoever’s there! Or we will turn you to stone and then beat on you until you break into a hundred pieces.”
“A million!”
“A dozen!”
“What? A million is more than a dozen.”
“Is it? Then how ’bout a thousand million?”
“How ’bout you learn to count?”
“How ’bout you shut your beak so I can find out who’s come into our new house to steal our prized possession?”
I can’t take their squabbling anymore. It’s worse than Mac and me on a long trip. Now I know how my dad feels when he tells us to stop it or he’s going to pull the car over this minute.
“My name is Nizhoni Begay,” I shout, “and I’m here to rescue Black Jet Girl. She is the guardian of this mountain, and you can’t have her.”
“Oh-ho-ho!” one of the buzzards squawks. “A rescue mission, is it? Who do you think you are that you can take what belongs to us?”
I inhale deeply, and even though my hands are shaking and my voice doesn’t sound all that steady, I tell them, “I am a monsterslayer.”
The buzzards stiffen for a second. Then one of them yelps and tries to hide behind the other.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he says, pushing his brother away. “This Nizhoni person cannot be a real monsterslayer. Where’s her lightning sword? She’s delusional.”
That’s insulting. But he does have a point.
The other one peers over his brother’s shoulder. “You’re right! We’d be able to hear the crack of thunder or smell the lightning if she were a real monsterslayer.” He chuckles. “Somebody has lied to her. She’s confused.”
“Misled.”
“Duped!”
“Discomfited!”
“Stop it!” I shout. “Besides, I don’t even think ‘discomfited’ means what you think it does.”
They roll their ugly heads on their necks like the world’s grossest bobbleheads. “Discombobulated! Discombobulated!” they screech.
“I said, stop!” I shout again, but why should they listen to me? They’re right. I don’t have a lightning sword, as cool as that sounds. I don’t even have any protective clothing. Just a black-and-red Isotopes hoodie from school, and that’s not going to stop their sharp talons.
“Look into our eyes,” one of the creatures croons at me, his voice a singsong. “Don’t be scared, little monsterslayer. If you’re a real monsterslayer, we can’t hurt you.”
“Yeah,” his companion cackles. He bulges his eyes, as if looking for me. “Monsterslayers are immune to our powers.”
“So look closer,” the first one warbles, shuffling forward, eyeballs popping out even farther.
I fight the urge to throw up a little. Eyeballs skeeve me out on the best of days. This bulging thing is taking it to a whole new level.
“Closer!” the other one says, and I realize they’re both moving around the fire, trying to get near to me.
My heart speeds up, and I swallow hard. I want to run, but I can’t leave Black Jet Girl in here alone. I’ve got to fight these monsters, but how?
“Little monsterslayer, where did you go?” says the first one, his eyes so big now they’re practically hanging out of their sockets.
I clutch Łizhin’s feather. It already woke up Black Jet Girl. I wonder if it has a little bit more ingenuity left. Black Jet Girl said I should throw it in the fire, but that would mean getting rid of my only weapon. Yet I don’t have a lot of choices here, and maybe the guardian knows something I don’t. “Here goes nothing,” I say to myself. I hurl the feather into the flames.