Stoneskin's Revenge by Tom Deitz

side. He awoke at that, stared at the sky across the creek. There was a trace of duskiness there, and the breeze sliding up from the river held a hint of evening cool.
    There were also two things moving in the sky: a pair of peregrine falcons.
    And he had dreamed of falcons, and earlier that afternoon he had seen a falcon fly off with a snake…Darkness fell upon him, of a sudden, as if a cloud had slipped over the sun, but still his gaze chased the birds. They were gliding west now, but very, very slowly. Calvin followed, slipped into the forest that bordered the creek, felt that world engulf him, knew it found resistance in such simple things as the smell of the soap he had cleaned up with.
    “Sorry,” he whispered. “Can’t help it, I’ll be more careful in the future.”
    And the trees seemed to whisper back, seemed to urge him on.
    Calvin simply drifted then, and was not surprised when a moment later he found himself approaching the stump of a lightning-blasted cypress, which was very strong medicine indeed. He scrambled up a buttresslike root that was taller than he was—and found himself atop a sort of natural altar within a ring of forest: decaying wood a carpet beneath his feet, the darkening sky a vault above his head. He could feel the air playing about his naked body.
    And there came to him, distantly but distinctly, a familiar, disturbing cry.
    A glance above showed him four falcons—the single most magical number—all flying in a circle just at the edge of the ring of trees. Round and round they swooped and swirled; faster and faster. One had something in its talons, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
    And then, all at once, all four arrowed inward, seemed to collide, but then winged apart again.
    But at that instant when Calvin was certain they were going to impact each other, one let something fall.
    It landed at his feet, but he did not flinch, did not look down. Rather, he continued to stare after the falcons as they flew in single file northwest.
    Only when they had vanished beyond the froth of treetops did Calvin dare venture a glance at what his totems had abandoned there.
    His hair prickled as he knelt before it, stretched a hand out at the baseball-sized blob of white and red, and rolled it over so that he could identify it.
    A face grinned back at him: tiny sharp teeth drawn back in death’s rictus, beady red eyes still glittering with a hint of life.
    It was the head of a ’possum. An albino ’possum. And with that realization chills shook him all over again. For the name Uki had given Dave Sullivan in Galunlati was Sikwa Unega: White ’Possum.
    This, Calvin reckoned, was an omen he could not ignore. Four falcons, a white ’possum’s head, and the birds had flown northwest with great urgency.
    So what did it mean?
    But he already knew, for those birds had tried to tell him before. This was a warning. Something was happening in the northwest, or was going to happen, something that involved snakes—or some similar threat from the Underworld; involved Stone Mountain, involved danger; and now, evidently, involved his buddy Dave.
    “Never leave business unfinished,” Calvin’s grandfather had told him, “especially not when it involves magic.”
    As if in confirmation, four falcon feathers drifted down from the sky. Calvin did not hesitate to claim them. Maybe Sandy had been right. Maybe this was a Vision Quest—in which case he’d better start observing the prohibitions.
    Suddenly Calvin Fargo McIntosh was very uneasy.

Chapter V: Conjurations
    (east of Whidden, Georgia—sunset)
    So much for getting his head straight, Calvin mused an hour later as he busied himself cutting palmetto fronds for a certain part of the ritual he was planning. Evidently the Powers-That-Be had no intention of leaving him alone—or at least that’s what the visions of the past few hours seemed to indicate. And here he had, perhaps foolishly, assumed he was through having adventures for a while. Books were