The boy nodded.
Celia gave the kid a twenty-dollar bill, twice what his father had asked for. The boy ran off.
May reached for Bean’s hand. “We should go.”
“Yeah…go get rested for tonight, you mean,” Bean said.
Ash shook her head as they started back into town. “Have you never watched a horror movie, Bean? I mean, not once? You don’t go into cursed woods in the middle of the night.”
Celia laughed. She leaned forward as she looked the group over. “Which of us is the token friend who dies? Every horror movie has one, at least.”
All four of them looked at Ash. She held her hands up. “Aw, hell. Not me. I’m not going in there with you.”
“The museum said those graves had been cleared out and the bodies recovered,” May said.
“But the kid talked about the bodies in the graves,” Celia said.
“Maybe Saint Merc had a killing spree.” Larry grinned at Bean. “We’re gonna be famous. We’re the first to report this. Our vlog’s finally going to get national, even international, recognition.”
“Then we’ll get funding.” Bean high-fived Larry. “No more temp jobs.”
“Even better, we’ll land a reality TV show. We’ll be the next adventure travelers.” Larry laughed. “We’ll film the whole thing tonight—livestream it.”
“Good luck with that.” Ash looked at her phone. Her text from earlier had gone through, but she’d been in town then, not out here. “No cell reception.”
“No worries,” Bean said. “We’ll just film it as if it’s live action, then produce it when we get home.”
“This is our break, man.” Larry jumped straight up in the air, too full of excitement to contain himself.
Ash shook her head. She was so not going to be their token dead person.
She couldn’t even believe she had to say that to herself.
8
Ash sat with her group in their room, watching them prep their equipment. She couldn’t shake the bad feeling she had about their upcoming adventure. At least she—their token dead person—would be safe here. If they weren’t back by morning, she’d send authorities after them.
She hoped it didn’t come to that.
They began loading things into their car. “Hey, Larry. Hand me your keys,” Ash said. “I’ll drive you guys up as close as I can get. Then I’ll rendezvous with you, say, around four a.m.?”
The foursome swapped glances. Maybe they worried about leaving their rental with her, considering she was pretty much a stranger.
“No. You’re coming with us,” Larry said.
“Oh, no. Not interested in being your sacrifice for tonight’s adventures.”
“No one’s going to be sacrificed,” Celia said. “We’ll stay together.”
“We’ll get in and get out,” May said. “With all of us videoing independently, we’ll have enough footage to cover a few shows without spending hours in there.”
“C’mon, Ash,” Bean said. “Aren’t you curious about the death pits? How can you live with yourself if you get so close to them without experiencing them?”
Ash was, in a sick way, curious about what was hidden in the jungle, but she’d seen enough horror flicks to know she was the odd one out in this group, despite their assurances otherwise.
“Look, you can stick with me and May,” Bean offered. “No way am I going to let anything happen to either of you, even if that means we have to cut out before we’re finished.”
Ash shook her head. “The kid said there are still bodies in there.”
“The museum said they’d all been recovered,” Larry replied. “There’s nothing in there—but ghosts.”
Celia punched his arm. “Knock it off. She’s scared enough as it is.”
Bean made an X over his heart, then held his fist against it. “We won’t let anything happen to you. I swear.”
Ash caved. “Fine.” She pointed to him and narrowed her eyes. “But if anything does happen, you better try keeping up with me when I run outta there.”
“That’s the spirit,” Larry said.
Ash changed into her trail pants and tucked her passport, phone, and wallet into zippered pockets. She pulled her long-sleeved shirt on over her tank top and rolled the sleeves down. Where they were headed, there was bound to be a ton of bugs.
While the guys were loading the car, she sent Summer and Kiera a text.
Hey, just checking in. Going on a nighttime tour. I’ll text you in the morning. Love you!
WTF? Kiera was the first to write back. You’re in Valle de Lágrimas. There are no nighttime tours there.
Unless she’s going into the jungle, Summer added.
Ash, don’t do it, Kiera said.
I agree, Summer said. You’re a seasoned traveler, A. You know how you got to be that? By not making bad decisions. This is a very bad decision.
Ash smiled to herself. Summer’s fingers had to be flying across her phone, so fast was her response. I’ll be safe and will stay aware. I’m going with a small group.
Shit. Now neither of us will get any sleep until you get back to your room.
You better text us the minute you can, Kiera said.
Just go to sleep. Nothing you can do. Love you. Gotta go.
When everything was packed, Larry locked the door and everyone piled into the car.
The main plaza and the blocks surrounding it had a few streetlights, but once they were in the newer, rougher side of town, there were far fewer lights illuminating the streets. A few people were out, but not many. Ash definitely didn’t want to be out and about on foot at that time of night.
Just as they were about to head out of town, Larry slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a sharp halt. A kid stood in the headlights. Ash had seen him around, but none of them had spoken to him.
Larry lowered his window as the kid walked over to his side.
“Where are you going?” the kid asked.
“For a little drive,” Larry answered. “Why are you out so late?”
“My friend told me you were going up to the graves.”
“Maybe. We’ll see where we end up.”
“You’ll end, all right, if you go there.”
“Why is it so dangerous? The bodies have all been removed,” Celia said, leaning across Larry.
“The pits pick who they keep.”
That sounded cryptic.
“A curse?” Celia asked.
The boy nodded. “One set by our own Saint Merc.”
The boy from their tour earlier joined the older kid at the window. “And if the pits don’t get you, la Tunda will,” he said.
“What’s that?” Larry asked.
“It’s a shape shifter that tricks you into going into the jungle,” the younger boy said. “It looks like someone you know, then, when you’re in deep enough, it shows its real self to you and eats you.”
“That sounds perfectly awful,” May said.
The boy nodded toward his older friend. “Pablo’s seen it. It’s real. It only comes out at night. We stayed up tonight to warn you. Please, don’t go into the woods.”
“Welp,” Ash said, “that’s good enough for me. Let’s turn around.”
Larry shot her a look in the rearview mirror. “No. Listen, kid. You’ve warned us, but we’re going in.” He handed each boy a ten-dollar bill. “Keep it quiet, okay? If you do, I’ll give you another ten in the morning.”
The kids looked at the money he held out, but shook their heads and stepped back, their eyes sad. They said nothing more, and Larry drove on.
Ash wanted, desperately, to turn back, but this group was too determined to do that. She considered staying in the car a few minutes later when they parked and everyone got out, but then she realized there might only be safety in numbers.
Ash squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that if the Tunda got her, it would make quick work of her and not eat her slowly, limb by limb.
Summer looked over at Sam, who was soun
d asleep and gently snoring. She’d been practicing her new mutant skills, especially being able to reach out to any of Sam’s friends to communicate mentally. Given what they did, it was one skill she knew might be useful, even to a non-fighter member of the team.
She tried to reach out to Merc, who was still in his forced coma, but it was like knocking on a door when no one was home and expecting an answer. She had to get one of the guys to astral-travel out to wherever Ash was. She needed to be protected. Summer thought about rousing Sam, but Merc and Ash had formed some kind of a bond. Sam might be able to help, but Summer felt her best bet was to get Merc involved.
She slipped out of bed and quietly went down the hall to Merc’s room. He was alone, lying so still on his bed.
“Merc,” she said, shaking his shoulder. “Merc, wake up. Please. I know it’s early yet. I know Guerre wants you to heal more, but Ash needs you. She’s in trouble. She’s doing something very bad. I’m afraid for her. Please. Please, wake up.”
“Summer, what’s going on?” Sam asked as he came to stand beside her. Summer startled. She looked at Sam, her eyes tearing up. He wore only his gray boxer briefs, making his body seem even more massive than when he was dressed. He pulled her close, and a warm feeling of comfort came over her.
“It’s been weeks and weeks. Why won’t Merc wake up?”
“He will soon. Guerre still has his hold on Merc. We’re just waiting for signs Merc’s ready. But why are you in here?”
“Ash is doing something dangerous. I don’t know what, but it involves exploring the jungle, now, at night. She and Merc had some kind of connection. I didn’t tell you about it, but she was in here that day she came over to plan her trip. Guerre and I think she connected with Merc somehow.”
“I see.”
“He knows Valle de Lágrimas. I was hoping he could stop her. Can you get to him?”
“Valle de Lágrimas?”
Summer went still, fearing Sam’s reaction. “Yes.”
“I can try.” He kissed the top of her head. “If I can’t rouse Merc, I’ll reach out to Ash myself. Failing those two options, I can have Lautaro get her. He’s been all over Valle de Lágrimas. He’ll be able to help too. Go back to bed. Let me see what I can do.”
Summer nodded. She knew Sam needed to concentrate, but she wanted to be nearby to help Ash if she could, so she stayed out of sight in the hallway, waiting for Sam to go inside himself for his journey. After a moment, he came out of Merc’s room. Taking her hand, he led her to their room.
“What happened?” she asked, hurrying beside him.
“Nothing. I couldn’t get through to Merc, but I didn’t need to. He was already attending to Ash.”
Summer pulled her hand free and stopped walking. “Shouldn’t we stay near in case we’re needed?”
Sam smiled. “Merc doesn’t need our help for this. Let them have their time.”
“Will this set his healing back?”
Sam’s smile widened. He wrapped his arms around her, then bent, picked her up, and carried her to their room. “The opposite, I think. Guerre’s right. Ash may be just what Merc needs. He’s been lost a long time.”
Merc slowly became aware of his surroundings as if surfacing from a particularly deep sleep. This waking had been happening more frequently lately. At least, he thought it had. He wasn’t able to become fully conscious, due to Guerre’s chokehold on his mind. He had no way of knowing what day it was—or even if it was a different day than when they’d brought him home from Colombia.
In some ways, what Guerre was doing to him—yes, for his own health and wellbeing—made Merc think of his early days as a new mutant, when someone outside of himself had manipulated his body and mind, overriding his autonomic systems.
His mind drifted to the woman who’d come into his dream. Ashlyn. Slim, brunette, midnight-blue eyes, she was the opposite of his wife’s short height, round softness, and curly blond hair. Tina had had happy, trusting eyes. Not eyes like Ashlyn’s, with their complicated blend of excitement, fear, curiosity, and distrust.
It irritated Merc that it was Ashlyn’s dark eyes that came to his more clearly than his own wife’s. Every night since Tina’s death, he’d held his wife as his last thought, living with her once again in some memory. His wake-up routine repeated the same steps—pretending her heart was still beating, pretending the girls would come running into their room to wake Mum for breakfast.
Those memories were all that gave his life meaning. And Ashlyn had stolen that from him by inserting herself into his mind.
He thought he might hate her, or hate the Matchmaker for bringing her to him. That fiend had penetrated his dream to stand watching over his and Ashlyn’s first meeting.
The Matchmaker’s Curse said that the mutant would die if he couldn’t bring his heart mate into their mutant world. But if he did, it was the mutant’s heart mate who would die. Little did the fiend know that Merc was perfectly fine being the one to lose his life.
He’d just finished that thought when Summer came into his room. Merc could feel her fear and desperation for her friend.
Ashlyn.
Merc didn’t let Summer into his mind, and he didn’t try to punch through the barrier Guerre had around him, keeping him in a restful stasis. He let Summer’s emotion roll over him, through him, fighting its pull, but at last, it was his obligation to Liege and his woman that roused him to action.
Without giving any outward signs that he was surfacing from his coma, he sent himself on an astral trip back to Valle de Lágrimas. He had only to home in on Ash’s energy to find her in the jungle, where she was heading toward the death pits.
A rough road had been cut into the jungle, but the dense, low-hanging canopy made it seem far narrower than it was. True to the promise the group had made Ash, they kept her in the middle as they walked from a high field into the dark woods. Ash lifted her collar, admitting to herself that she wasn’t an intrepid jungle explorer. No, she was more the urban type of girl. All she could think of was the venomous reptiles, monster centipedes, and huge spiders. And la Tunda, of course, whatever the hell that was. Probably just a local legend to keep tourists like the five of them out of the jungle and away from the pits.
The trill of bugs grew louder the deeper into the bush they went. Now and then a cry from a monkey or some night raptor ripped into the night.
Larry and Bean had researched the location of the gravesite back at the hotel using satellite imagery. They calculated that the mass graves were about a mile into the woods. A mile. She was totally screwed if they had to turn tail and run. She’d been trying to memorize bits along the way, but the foliage all looked the same and roots that grew across the path were indistinguishable from one another.
At last, the group came to a stop. Ash almost bumped into Celia in front of her. She looked up to see the lights from their phones and flashlights sweep over a cavernous space that opened inside the jungle. They’d come to a wide clearing, and though it was open to light from the moon, it seemed blanketed in unnatural shadows.
“Damn,” Larry said, his voice hushed with awe. “You rolling, Bean?”
“Yeah. We’re live. Let’s walk around and get a feel for the place.”
Let’s don’t, Ash said to herself, but there was no stopping now. She turned her phone light toward the area of the three large trenches. Two were empty. One had a pile of something in the middle of it. Ash followed the others to get a closer look and realized there was a row of feet sticking out of the dirt layered on the heap. Lots of feet.
She recoiled in horror. The museum had said the mass graves had been cleared out and an effort was underway to identify the remains. Was that a lie perpetrated by the government? Or was the violence in this area ongoing, leaving new victims here? Tearing her gaze away, she shined her light on the two other pits.
“Oh my God. They’re looking at us,” Bean whispered as he held his camera on the other end of the mound of bodies in the first pit.
“
It’s the portrait effect,” Celia said, coming even with him. “You know, when stationary eyes seem to follow you.”
“No, it’s not that,” Larry said. “Look. Their eyes are moving. They’re alive.”
“I don’t see it,” Celia persisted. “It’s just a trick of the light.”
“Whatever. Let’s do a challenge,” Larry suggested. “One of us needs to go into the pit and lie down.”
“There are bugs all over them.” May grimaced. “I’m not doing that.”
“Then go into one of the empty pits,” Bean said.
“You go,” Celia said.
Larry looked over at her. “We can’t. We’re filming.”
“Give Celia and me the cameras.” May held out her hand. “We’ll film you.”
A rustling sounded in the brush across the clearing, behind the graves. The guys lifted their cameras, trying to catch whatever it was.
“The Tunda, maybe,” May whispered.
“More likely, it’s the boys from town trying to scare us,” Celia grumbled.
Something about that last pit nagged at Ash. It was about the same size as the other two, long, wide, as deep as Bean was tall. She was struck by a world where so much death could exist without anyone to mourn such a huge loss of human life. She looked back at the first pit. Perhaps the government hadn’t gotten to it yet. Maybe they were doing things in stages so they didn’t overwhelm their forensic teams.
But the feet and faces of that pit’s victims were fresh, like they’d just lain down in there. Their eyes weren’t even clouded over like she thought dead eyes should be.
Valle de Lágrimas had been a good location for the trenches because it was so far off the beaten path. And really, until the government had come to do the work here, there hadn’t been a passable road into town, the museum had said.
The group she’d come into the jungle with were still staging a mock challenge to get one of them to go into one of the empty trenches. It was clearly all for show, based on their exaggerated whispers and staged fear. Ash ignored them. Stairs led down from the edge into the last pit. She was going to head in, but not because it was great content for their vlog—something was calling her forward.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 8
