“It is a gift.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know. I was just told to bring it to you. There is a note, though.”
Ash sighed. All her well-honed experience as a lone traveler told her to turn away strangers with gifts, but something compelled her to open the door. The kid held a small brown bag and a paper cup with a lid. He took off as soon as he’d handed them to her.
She didn’t see a note. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to eat food she hadn’t ordered. But damn, the Perico coffee smelled divine. She set it down and took a peek inside the bag.
Double dammit.
There was a still-warm chocolate croissant with a folded piece of paper. Never in her life had Ash thrown away a fresh chocolate croissant.
This was pure hell.
She took the paper out of the bag and set the treat aside. The handwriting on it was unfamiliar.
Morning. Can’t make breakfast. Do what you came to do, but don’t talk to strangers. Everyone is an enemy.
~Me
P.S. Eat the croissant. I am NOT an enemy.
She smiled. That declaration made her ridiculously happy.
Merc had put the order in for the coffee and croissant last night, with the instructions that it wasn’t to be delivered until he sent for them. He’d wanted Ash to have a good night’s sleep—not only for her own health, but it let him continue the work he was doing looking for a host among the mine workers.
He was already in the room with her when the food arrived, but he kept himself hidden. All mutants transitioned easily into voyeurs after their change. They were wired for reconnaissance—soldiers and sex slaves alike. He felt no guilt spying on Summer’s friend. What he did feel was a burdensome and unfamiliar heat. For ten years, he’d missed his libido. And now it was back with a vengeance.
He didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust any sudden changes in his biochemistry. He’d learned during his transition that such changes brought painful lessons, ones he could never see coming. Maybe it was the Matchmaker’s doing; maybe it was some nefarious game the Omnis had cooked up.
Either way, his hunger for Ashlyn was debilitating. He should have found another room to stay in, somewhere away from her. He could have crashed with anyone without being discovered. This close, it was almost impossible to resist his need for her.
He wanted her to drink the coffee he’d sent and eat the chocolate pastry so he could taste those things from her mouth. He wanted to breathe the scent of her sleep-warmed body. He wanted to see the hunger in her eyes as he fucked her. He wanted…her. All of her.
He understood now how resisting the Matchmaker’s Curse meant the end of the mutant. Seeing his female, knowing her, needing her, caused in the mutant a necrotizing hunger, one that had to be sated else it devoured its host.
She was his hell and his hope, both.
He pushed a thought into her mind: Eat your croissant—it’s still warm.
She pulled the pastry from the little bag. She took a big bite of the thing then moaned, which shot a frisson right to his groin. She closed her eyes and smiled at its delicious texture and flavor. Her tongue swept around the contours of her lips. He’d have thought she’d eat fast, enjoying it as she was. But no, she ate slowly, eyes closed, moaning here and there.
Was she torturing him on purpose?
If they were ever intimate again, he’d remember this, forcing them to go slowly, setting a pace that would be near torture for her.
He’d walked through her mind, seeing her history with her previous lovers, the way she’d rushed them to intimacy for both satisfaction and judgment.
That wouldn’t happen with him.
He lowered his head to his hand and covered his eyes. This was bad. Really bad. He began counting, hoping the distraction would calm his raging need. It didn’t. He tried to think about benign things—the scent of her coffee—but ended up thinking about the scent of her skin. He thought of the town, scrambling to revive itself, surrounded by the verdant jungle…and the monsters gathering in the shadows.
It was that last thought that broke through his lust.
Ash walked through the town, shocked at how much it had changed in the short while she’d been away. The roads were clogged with cars making deliveries and transporting tourists in and out. There were even a few buses parked near the village square.
People were everywhere. When she’d been here the first time, it was a ghost town. Now the homes crowded together on the outskirts of town, those built from odds and ends of lumber and panels of corrugated aluminum, were being rebuilt with sturdier materials. Ground-floor apartments within three streets of the main square had been turned into shops, restaurants, and short-term rentals.
Word on the street was that the mysterious and saintly man who’d turned the town around had been taken back to heaven, but that didn’t stop the tourists from trying to at least touch the places he’d touched, stand where he’d stood. Many had brought curios to have blessed by placing them near where the saint had been.
No one doubted he was a saint, even if he’d not been officially recognized.
Ash crossed the town, walking down the narrow roads where the death chairs had been placed. On her first visit, the bodies had been mostly intact. She wondered if anyone had tried to get close enough to remove the corpses—she hadn’t been able to. Wild scavengers could, however. They had pulled the soft tissue from the bones, but the skeletons still remained intact, still sitting in their chairs, bits of fabric clinging to them. The remains were now even more gruesome.
Surrounding these macabre displays, tourists placed their mementos and crosses, hoping to have them absorb some of the saint’s energy.
Ash stood among the crowd gathered in a half-circle around the last chair. She stepped back from the gathering, seeking some perspective. Whatever had infected her mind from her first visit was still affecting people now. It was a relief to know she hadn’t made this up. The town couldn’t be poisoning all these people—at least not without serious side effects that would bring attention to their shenanigans.
Something real had happened here, something inexplicable.
She snapped a pic on her phone. It took several attempts to get a clear photo of the death chair. Her camera kept shifting its focus to something else nearby, as if her hand moved. Maybe that was proof of the energy field around it. Her images mostly caught the throng gathered around the chair, not the chair itself.
Ash turned her attention to the mural that had been painted over the pink and orange base. A portrait of the saint was in the middle, standing at a high vantage point overlooking the mountain village, his back to the mural viewer. His hair was short on one side, long on the other, colored dark in one quarter, blond in another. His naked body was divided into three chunks—his shoulders and upper arms showed his skin as a dark brown, his middle section showed him with white skin, and his legs were a light brown. A white cloth shrouded his hips in horizontal folds.
A young volunteer posted at the mural began her lecture on the art and the mysterious man it depicted. Ash recognized the boy near her. It was Pablo, holding a big collection jar. The speaker covered several of the incredible feats he’d done while in town, most of which were in the mural.
Ash tilted her head as she looked at the art. At first, she thought the painter was influenced by Cubism, but the speaker explained that one of the curious things about their visitor was that no two people had seen him in the same way, which was why the artist had painted him in the blocky way she had. People were adamant they’d seen what they had, but none of their descriptions matched others’.
A shiver slipped over Ash, raising gooseflesh across her arms. The saint was a shapeshifter. Either that, or he’d found a way of scrambling people’s minds. And since shapeshifters didn’t exist but mass hallucinations were well documented, she went with the latter.
She took a picture of the mural. Whatever had altered her reality perception had also hit the town’s reside
nts and visitors.
Maybe there was something in the water, a chemical left over from the illegal gold mines in the area or toxic waste from the contraband producers that hid their work in the jungle. She thought about taking samples of the water to have it analyzed. Maybe there was a place she could drop the vials off in Medellín.
There had to be a clear explanation for what was happening.
Ash studied the mural, seeing new things each time her eyes moved over certain areas. She walked the length of the wall to look at one area in particular. Something was depicted standing at the edge of the jungle…something that looked very much like a werewolf. What a strange thing to stick in a painting of a supposed saint.
The girl had stopped speaking and was now fielding questions from her audience. When the crowd broke up, she came over to stand next to Ash. “You can see them,” the girl said. “Not everyone can.”
Ash turned to look at her. Werewolves weren’t real. But then, none of this was. And yet she had only to look at the zombie thugs stuck to their chairs to see that some of it had happened.
The girl pointed out several more instances of the monsters in the woods. “It is la Tunda,” she said. “Our own fabled cryptid. She tricks the unwary into going into the woods, then devours them. Saint Merc fought several of them to save Pablo.” The girl nodded over to the boy standing with the collection jar.
Pablo recognized her. “You came back.”
Ash nodded. “I had to. I needed to understand what happened here.”
“It isn’t for understanding. It’s only for accepting.” The boy’s eyes were big and solemn.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Pablo.”
He nodded. “As I am you.”
Ash dropped a few U.S. dollars into the jar he held, then headed back into town. Each of the other murals faced an equally grisly corpse still sitting upright in its chair. Each was surrounded with items visitors wanted blessed. Each had an interpreter and another kid with a collection jar.
Geez. She was such an easy mark. Of course they sensationalized their stories—they were selling an experience, just like any haunted house tour.
Saints and cryptids. Vanquished gangs. Good and evil and mystery.
Damn, but it worked great.
She laughed, glad the town had found a way to save itself…and because laughing staved off terror.
She looked toward the far end of the plaza, where the church was. A queue of people spilled down the stairs and wound around the corner of the plaza. She joined the end of the line, and more people followed her. The elderly couple behind her was anxiously eyeing the church doors.
“The line doesn’t seem to be moving very fast,” Ash said in Spanish.
“I hope it speeds up,” the man replied. “This is the first day that the viewing has been open to the public. We’re leaving in the morning—we must get a chance to see it before we have to leave.”
“See…what?”
“The robe,” the woman answered, looking up at Ash from her wheelchair. “The holy robe covered in the saint’s blood.” She made the sign of the cross, then continued working her rosary beads.
The man leaned closer and lowered his voice. “My wife is not well. She has the cancer now. We need this visitation very much.”
Ash nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. What a scary time for you both. I do hope you get in. And I hope it gives you the relief you’re looking for.”
The line was growing faster than it was diminishing. People waited patiently for their moment with the saint’s relic. Several were in wheelchairs or leaned on crutches. Their expressions ran the gamut of human emotions, from hope to desperation, joy to frustration. They came from all over the world and represented believers from many religions, curious non-believers, and straight-up atheists.
After a few hours, an announcement was made that the display would be closing and no visitors after Ash’s place in line could come in.
The woman behind her began to weep. Ash felt awful for them. She thought about giving up her place, but something within her fought against that inclination.
When she’d gotten in line, it was more out of curiosity than desire to see the robe again. She was more interested in what had been done to showcase the robe. Was it still in its little storeroom at the back of the church?
Her compulsion to see the robe again was strong, but not stronger than her desire to help the older couple behind her. Giving up her place in line was a simple thing to do.
Ash set her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Don’t cry. You two can take my place. I can see it another day.”
She stepped out of line, waving to them as she left. Once again, she moved to a vantage point that let her look over the crowd from the high platform of the church steps. The people there at that moment were experiencing the same energy she had.
Except it wasn’t exactly the same, was it? She wondered if any of these people were having visitations from Merc. Had he slipped into their dreams—and into their bodies?
Merc’s voice, irritated and growly, came into her mind. No. I did not.
She shook her head. It wasn’t enough that she’d thrown herself at him the first time they’d actually met in real life—
You didn’t throw yourself at me.
Right. She was still having full-on conversations with her imaginary version of Merc.
She was pathetic.
I’m not imaginary.
Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?
It’s complicated.
That comment brought her up short. This was not a conversation she was instigating, a pretend chat that she generated the content for like someone playing both sides of a chessboard. No, it existed on its own, saying things she didn’t think.
Whatever. It was in her head, so it was within her own purview to manage. She crossed her arms and decided then and there to purge any more thoughts of Merc.
And yet…Merc was all around her here. His blood was in the church where hundreds had just been queued up to see it. His influence was painted all over the new murals that now covered the gang art that once had been a threatening reminder of who owned this rough little village. Merc’s essence held the place of honor—or horror—in the gruesome human remains filling the chairs facing the new murals, sites that were now collecting piles of mementos placed by desperate worshipers hungry for a little peace of mind.
I did not mean for any of this to happen.
And yet here we are, she responded before she could stop herself. Dammit. This wasn’t real. She was conversing with her own madness.
19
Skin-walking was a laborious endeavor. Merc thought back to his days in the training camps, learning to astral-travel. He had to first overcome his doubts about it being a real thing, then he had to tackle his fear about the altered reality it brought. Was he still himself outside the shell of his body? Once he’d made the leap, he realized reality was a misnomer. There was only truth in the moment, and even that was defined in the eyes of the observer.
Maybe that was when he began to hate himself.
He felt the same uncanny feeling now, trying to consciously possess a worker from the mine. He was attempting to take over a regular—a being he was sworn to protect. And though he had only the intention to ride the man into the protected zone to see what was happening there, Merc knew possession violated the Legion’s principles. It wasn’t something taught in the training camps; he had no idea where Flynn had learned to do it. The art of possession, once mastered, made a mutant far more powerful than a regular. And as with every other superior skill a mutant had, it was something that could be used without oversight, without checks and balances, and, worst of all—without guilt.
Merc centered himself again. The morals of what he was doing would have to be sorted later. Getting into that mine was all that mattered. He’d spent the days since his return connecting with several of the mine workers. They worked three days on, off one. Not one man enjoyed his work. Most spen
t their off time drinking and fucking. None spoke of what went on during his shifts, not with each other, not with their families.
Merc’s astral self jumped to the modified ATV that was transporting the incoming crew. The men aboard were silent. Merc couldn’t tell if that was due to a compulsion or personal choice. He suspected the latter.
The trip to the mine on the transport took about an hour. Merc had one hour to get inside one of them—not an easy feat, given how strong the protection on them was. He realized he couldn’t force his way in; he had to be invited.
Merc faced the man riding alone in the back row. Juan was his name. Merc didn’t use words to seduce the man’s psyche. Instead, he used the skill Guerre had taught the team of communicating in knowings. That skill had had a steep learning curve, until they’d all understood that a concept was known before the idea of it was articulated. When you saw a door open, you didn’t have to say to yourself that the door opened—you already knew it without the words describing it. And just as emotion was often lost in a text, the nuance of a meaning could be lost in a verbalization, but it was never lost in a knowing.
You are afraid, Merc sent the acknowledgement into the man’s mind. It was the truth, and was so pure a knowing that it bypassed the protection on his mind.
The man jumped and looked around.
I can help.
The man hit the shoulders of the two in the seat in front of him, asking them what they were talking about.
They looked confused. “We are not talking. Nor should you be.”
Thoughts were energy, and knowings were the purest form of it because they simply existed. They had no resistance, no emotion, no beginning, and no end. They just were.
And in that stream of energy that Merc had opened, the man responded in kind: You can’t help me.
You can’t do it yourself. Let me in.
And just like that, Merc stepped into the man’s skin. He felt Juan’s body absorb his. He became older, shorter, weaker. He smelled like him and saw from eyes that were far less capable than his.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 18
