An outlaw 'biker meet' might seem like an unlikely place for two Native people to find love, and yet for Carmel Crow Woman and Ben Stormrider, romance is in the air at the subculture event. After falling in love, they head into a theater of mountain beauty, on a couple’s quest for adventure and seclusion.
Their blissful stay is soon interrupted. While partaking in prayers of spirit, they are struck with the powerful vision of a long forgotten Native prophecy: the arrival of the Emissaries of Archeoté. The dream horizon reveals the ominous vehicle by which the emissaries travel; and everything about it spells danger.
The Emissaries come from a dying hell, sent by their father to commit the ultimate atrocity. They present themselves to the world as an unstoppable menace, bent on destruction, and the dark transformation of the entire human race.
Excerpt
The blazing prairie lit up the night, with a single passage through: a seamless black road of shining asphalt. What they saw could have been a black river, only there was a traveler up ahead—a powerful and ancient black car from the pre-catalytic converter age of excess. It was parked at an angle, blocking their view of a big green highway sign, an ostensible message shining on the side of the road.
Ben and Carmel were there together, cradling each other as they squirmed before the burning prairie, the ground embers casting heavy smoke that choked their breath. It was a place of terrible discomfort from which there appeared to be no escape. And yet; beyond the hell’s emissary, a cold sky of turbulence prevailed, indicating a place much worse.
The naked couple focused their attention back on the traveler once the engine began revving; it was an all encompassing sound, like one thousand steely motorcycles racing full throttle down a desert highway. It was too loud for them, even for the ground, which began to crumble with the strident roar, until the pieces began dropping into oblivion. The sound increased and became utterly explosive, beyond any level of human cognition, and raging with the horrible pain of their ears dying. Then as the car lurched forward, they fell down to their knees, clamping their ears shut while death came at a blistering speed. Ben tried to pull his love to safety. But there was nowhere safe. Then during the last moments before disaster played out, the warriors saw the big green road sign exposed. A strange word in shocking letters—Archeoté—became seared into their memories just before the thunder of the engine released them and allowed them to fall back to their bodies—
Two Native Americans, Carmel Crow Woman and Ben Stormrider, cross paths at a biker meet in the desert. They fall in love and hit the road to have some time alone and later for Ben to meet Carmel’s family but are haunted by a shared vision of impending doom.
Meanwhile, two parallel storylines depict the Emissaries of Archeoté, the real world manifestation of the demons from their vision, and that of the relentless soldier pursuing them.
Kuldinow skillfully cuts between these three plot lines, keeping the reader’s interest in each separate set of characters but also building our suspense as to how all of them will come together. When all does converge, Kuldinow provides an exciting and satisfying climax.
The characterizations are vivid and Kuldinow provides insightful glimpses into both the Native American culture and the complexities of military conflicts in the Middle East, the setting for the parallel story. You really come to care about Carmel, Ben and the others they meet on their journey.
While there is a well-developed mythical element to this novel, much of the fear and suspense originates in situations that could easily happen given the right circumstances.
This novel is well-crafted and filled with great action as well as thoughtful meditations on its themes. Though it is quite unique in plot and style, if I was forced to make a comparison I would call it a cross between a Dale Brown military thriller and a Southwest mystery by Tony Hillerman but all with a healthy dose of the supernatural as well.
I highly recommend checking it out and keeping an eye on Mason Kuldinow.
In the end they'll all be dancin'--all them ones that didn't die.... Dance with me in the shadows amidst the lightning and the thunder, and all that nu-cu-lar debris. See the big bang from the other side, and then open that cellar door. Go down into
