“We went ahead and came down here,” I said. “So we’re pretty sure we’re on the right track. At least I am. We heard from the bad guys who had Zarya that they were from here, so I think it’s at least a good place to start. And I’m almost positive they know we’re coming.” I massaged my temples. “That doesn’t mean we have to do what they expect and make a beeline for their door, either.”
Tess bit her lip and looked away, but she nodded. Kamila seemed to agree, too, because she looked down and bobbed her head. “There’s an apartment over in Belém we can use. It’s more of a safe house than anything else, but at least we’re not putting ourselves in harm’s way by signing into hotels and all that.”
I remembered what they’d said last night about the network of Ferin and sympathizers. Maybe that would have been useful back in those early days, when we had to sleep in a van. Then again, I wouldn’t trade those early days for anything.
“All right. We go to Belém and figure out a way to research our next steps.” I stood up. “Any suggestions for how to get there?”
“You bet, babe.” Zarya winked at me. “We go the old-fashioned way. Public transportation.”
I held back a groan. Portland had a bus system, but Maine as a general rule didn’t have the most extensive public transit system in the world. We were an independent people who liked our space, and public transportation went against all of that. I’d viewed public transportation with a jaundiced eye even before I signed on for this little adventure. Now that an entire species was out to kill me and my friends, it seemed like an even worse idea.
At the same time, we weren’t likely to attract as much attention on trains or buses as we were in hotels or on the regular roads. We could save those for when we truly needed them, such as going deep into the jungle.
Knowing all of this didn’t make me fall in love with buses.
We checked out of our room and headed toward the bus station. The streets weren’t all that crowded, but my skin crawled the whole time. I knew anyone could be working for the vampires, and for any reason. Maybe they were being paid well. Maybe they were being blackmailed or duped. The reasons didn’t matter.
It was a shame that such a beautiful place was so overrun with vampires. I hadn’t seen much of Brazil so far, with the exception of what I’d seen from the train window. The streets here were beautiful. Not paved with gold, but beautiful in their own right. They spilled over with life, even now in the dead of winter. Bright flowers poured from window boxes, and green plants sprang up from cracks in the pavement.
Lifebringer. The title sprang into my mind like a whisper, echoing through the halls within. Where better for someone called Lifebringer to be than a place like Brazil? And yet the place was overrun with death. I could hardly think of a bigger contrast.
Back in Maine, I would still be trudging through snow. My skin would be raw and chapped with cold. I would live in enough layers to make me look like the Michelin man. In only a few short months, my world had expanded to take in an entirely new hemisphere. My worldview had grown, too. I’d embraced polyamory, which had seemed bizarre in my youth. I’d given up stability and security—okay, stability and security had been stolen from me—and I’d found a home on the open road. But against everything, I was thriving.
I noticed that Tess seemed to be on high alert. She didn’t talk or banter with me, but kept her eyes moving constantly among the crowd. Her hands stayed loose and ready at all times, too.
Zarya looked perfectly serene and content, but she was more used to the way people lived down here. A perfectly normal interaction, like an openly admiring glance from a man, wouldn’t seem threatening to her. It made those of us who were more used to American behavior twitchy.
I couldn’t manage to convince myself we weren’t being followed; not necessarily by someone associated with vampires, but none of us looked like typical Brazilians. It wouldn’t be out of the question for us to attract the attention of pickpockets or thieves. That would be an unwanted complication.
The bus station loomed up ahead, teeming with people and activity the way the streets teemed with life. People from all over the region and beyond gathered here. It doubled as a train station as well, though not the one we’d come in through. As a result, the whole site had an air of confusion and activity that made my orderly New England head spin.
I inhaled, letting the sights and sounds wash over me as I adjusted to the crowd. Once we got to Belém, we would find another way of getting to where we needed to go. Our path decided, we pushed our way into the station.
3
We entered the station and recognized our first problem immediately. Multiple ticket counters stood out, with long lines including screaming babies, tourists mired in confusion, and angry locals trying to get where they were going despite delays. I could understand exactly none of them with my long-forgotten high school French and my Mainer English. Kamila glanced around helplessly, and even Tess was nonplussed. People around us mostly spoke Portuguese. A few spoke Spanish, and some spoke indigenous languages that were musical but unknown to all of us.
We had arrived in Babel, transplanted in a modern bus terminal, and no one was going anywhere anytime soon.
Zarya gave us all frustrated looks. “Seriously, none of you speak anything but English? Kamila, I know you at least speak German and Polish.”
Kamila crossed her arms over her chest. “And if we were in Krakow, I’d be fine, wouldn’t I? We’re not. We’re in Brazil, on fairly short notice.”
Zarya smiled, then fluttered her lashes. “Fortunately, some of us have been living down here long enough to have picked up some of the lingo, and if that won’t work, I’ll use this,” she said, waving at the curves of her body. “I’ll find the best way to get where we’re going.”
She glided out into the crowd, and I watched until I couldn’t find her anymore.
We waited in silence, though one person approached and managed to convey through gestures and very slow speech that she wanted to pet our dog. No one seemed exceptionally hostile or aggressive, and Daisy lapped up the attention like she would a bowl of stew . I couldn’t relax, though. I was used to selecting targets and following them, and the throng around us was like a living organism of sights and colors and sound.
I couldn’t afford to think that way. I had to focus.
The ground underneath us trembled a bit, and Kamila put her hand on mine. “Settle,” she whispered. “You’re good.”
“Thanks, Kam. Target rich environment for vamps.”
“And for us, too, but I get it. We’re all a little on edge.” She let go of my hand, and we resumed waiting for Zarya.
Zarya returned half an hour later with a handful of paper and four plastic cards. “This is your cartão de viajantes,” she informed each of us as she passed them around. “It’s easier to use while getting around on public transport than buying tickets every time, especially since none of you speak Portuguese. We don’t want to have different ticket agents all along the route remembering who we are, right?”
I nodded as she distributed the cards. In the meantime, using public transport would give the vampires something to chase and let us leave a confusing trail. The gambit had worked when we fled New York for Belize, and hopefully it would work again here.
“I found a train to take us from Belém,” Zarya continued, once she’d distributed all of our cards. “The only drawback is that we have to go to another part of the terminal to get to it. There’s a corridor.” She jerked her head toward a sign I couldn’t read. “The Pará Transit Authority has a connected terminal that’s separate from this one, so we need to get to it. We’ll catch the next available train, but I’ve got to warn you. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”
“We do?” Tess echoed my sentiments as she frowned at Zarya. “It didn’t look that far on the map. What is it, five hours with stops?”
Zarya laughed. “Try twenty hours with stops. And there isn’t a sleeper car on public transit, I’m a
fraid.”
My heart sank. We would have no privacy, and we would have a hard time defending ourselves on a normal train. I started considering angles and plans, because once we got on the train, those thoughts would be too late if there were vamps onboard.
We stuck close together as we navigated the crowd. First, we stopped at a little market to get supplies. Public transportation wouldn’t feature a dining car, so we would have to bring our own food. We stocked up on water, dog food, and lightweight snacks that didn’t need to be refrigerated before continuing toward the tunnel.
I felt eyes on me the whole time, but I kept my expression neutral, waiting for the watcher to tip their hand.
It was a good thing I did. The station was old and dimly lit, probably to keep it cool in an era before air conditioning. That meant it didn’t get a lot of natural sunlight. I spotted someone making his way through the crowd in the same general direction we were, not too fast and not too slow. He didn’t seem to want to get too close, but he definitely seemed to be keeping pace with us.
That wasn’t good. Especially since he waited outside the little market for us to make our purchases.
I kept my hands loose as we strolled, neither hurrying nor lazy. After a moment, we made it to the tunnel. The corridor itself stretched out long and broad, wide enough to get an ambulance through if someone needed to do so, and it had been lined entirely with blue tiles. The hallway had a variety of doors and emergency exits, which were a tactical nightmare. They also gave me an idea.
I passed two before I grabbed the others and pulled them into one of the alcoves. It led to public bathrooms.
“What’s going on?” Tess tilted her head to the side. “Bathroom break? Now?”
“No. We’ve got a new best friend. Average height, probably local, yellow T-shirt.”
“Sunglasses indoors?” Kamila snorted. “I should’ve figured something was up with him besides looking like a cheap actor. Vamp?”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Well, considering that he’s avoiding pools of sunlight, I’d say he’s a fanger.”
“What do you want to do?” Zarya glanced out toward the hallway. “We could duck up one of these emergency exits, but they’re usually alarmed.”
“I’m—concerned but optimistic. He’s alone, but that could change. I didn’t see any others trailing farther back,” I said.
“We need to get to Belém so we can use that apartment. And Belém is probably safer than a lot of other places in Brazil, if the network has an apartment there.” Tess glanced back out into the corridor.
“That works. We’re going to be on the train no matter what, but we need to be extra vigilant. We’re almost certainly going to be attacked, which is what fangers do. What I want to avoid—other than our deaths, of course—is any collateral damage,” I said.
“Even on a crowded train. I’m so tired of these animals and how cheaply they view life.” Zarya gave me a sour look.
“It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve attacked in a public place. It probably won’t be the last, either. We need to minimize civilian involvement.” I sighed. Being the good guy made things a lot more complicated, but there wasn’t an alternative. I refused to become someone or something that used people as human shields. “We look for the car with the fewest people on it, and we take that one.” I looked down at Daisy. “I suspect you can help with that.”
She licked me and wagged her tail. It wasn’t the expression of fierceness I was going for, but it would have to do.
We edged back out into the corridor and continued on our way. I used my thermal senses to pick out the one who’d been following us and, unsurprisingly, found the void in the crowd. Just as I’d suspected, the man was a vampire. It was difficult not to glance his way, because I definitely had plans to kill him. The difference was scruples. I had them, and he didn’t.
We emerged onto a crowded platform. Santarém station had trains going all over the region. Some of them were local trains, carrying people to and from suburbs. More of them were intended to bring travelers all over the state of Pará.
Pará, as I’d learned from the non-vampire map Zarya had brought us, was a massive area with several rivers. It had a huge section of the Amazon rainforest, and as a result was the home to a great deal of illegal deforestation and land occupation. Soy farming had become a major cash crop in the area, and they’d been turning out iron ore, bauxite, and tropical hardwoods since the sixteenth century. It was the second largest state in Brazil in terms of land area, and the most populous state in the northern part of the country.
What that meant for me and the other Ferin, I didn’t know. What attracted the vampires also remained to be seen. Other than destruction and blood, I still didn’t quite understand what made them tick. They couldn’t be attracted to the warm weather. Vampires were immune to cold and only felt heat when on fire. The sun was out about half of the time in Brazil, so they couldn’t possibly feel safer here than they would in someplace like Norway.
But we would find out what they wanted.
Our vampire stalker wasn’t trying to hide himself now. He stood closer to us on the platform labeled Belém, staring openly. I could do nothing about it without tipping off everyone on the platform that the supernatural was in their midst. Given the nature of vampires—and human panic—it was best that we were the line of defense, and so I decided to keep the brawl between us. It would be Ferin and vampire, and humanity would remain blissfully ignorant, but it wasn’t my call to make.
Making the first move on a crowded platform wouldn’t just alert the crowd, it would endanger them. I pretended I had no idea who or what he was and concentrated on the train timetable. Maybe we would get lucky and our stalker would burst into flame on the train, unable to avoid the giant windows.
4
We boarded the train and quickly sought the car with the fewest people. It wasn’t hard to figure out why the one we chose was comparatively empty. It was grimy, the seats lacked much in the way of cushioning or comfort, and the bathroom could stand to be cleaned. If I was wrong and the enemy didn’t come for us during the trip, it was going to be a long twenty hours.
I was willing to make the tradeoff.
We found some seats that weren’t too bad arranged around a little table. I think the idea was that people could work, whether that meant putting their laptops on the table or having a small meeting right there on the train. The table gave Daisy a nice place to hide out, which was a big load off my mind.
We settled in, and some of the other seats filled in around us. Every additional seat that got filled drew my attention as I marked the occupants, weighing them as threats and then moving on to the next person.
Once the train boarded, it lurched out of the station. Santarém passed by in a grimy smear, or at least the parts unfortunate enough to be close to train tracks. And then we found ourselves cutting through the jungle as the colors shifted from urban to a riot of greens.
I’d heard about the rainforest throughout my life and now it rushed past, vivid and endless. The scene was hypnotic, as my eyes selected one detail—a tree, a leaf, a clump of grass—before shifting to the next shape in a constant blur of vibrant life.
Kamila cleared her throat. “So,” she said. “About this Patagonia.”
All four of us bowed our heads to look at the map. When I’d first looked at it, I thought the creators had given us a pretty good idea of where we were going and what we were doing. Now that I had a better idea of just how vast Brazil was, I knew that red circle Dalmont had left behind covered an awful lot of territory.
“We need to figure out exactly where we’re going and what we’re looking for,” I said. “This Patagonia could be anywhere, you know? And it could be anything.”
Tess shot me a quizzical glance. “What do you mean? It’s where the vampires come from. We know this. They told us.”
“They did, I know.” I ground my teeth. “But is it a town? A region? A building? Is it a spring, or an an
cient temple sitting on the bones of some god-king even Lovecraft couldn’t dream up? We’re charging in with no information.”
“Which was your idea.” Tess said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think this is the right play, but we don’t have a way of understanding what it is, do we?”
Zarya laughed. “As far as I know, Patagonia is just a myth. I don’t even know what kind of myth it is.”
I snapped my fingers. “But they abducted a water magician because of it.”
Zarya shuddered. “They did,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was trying not to think about that, but they did.”
I tugged at my collar. “I know it’s not something you like to think about. None of us would. But whatever this Patagonia thing is, it’ll have something to do with water. It narrows down some of the territory, at least. We don’t have to go traipsing off through villages or croplands, right?”
“Thank God,” Kamila said. “I don’t know about you guys, but slogging through fields is not my idea of a good time. Although they could in theory spawn vampires. I don’t know.”
I laughed a little. “Hey, fields are cash for a farming economy. What are some of the things we know about vampires and water?”
Zarya drummed her fingers on the table for a moment. “We don’t know much. It used to be thought that vampires couldn’t cross running water, but we know that’s not true. They don’t have any water in their veins, but that doesn’t have much to do with anything.”
“They don’t have water, but the blood they drink is liquid.” I met her eyes. “I can make it boil.”
“Yes, you can, can’t you?” She gave me a little smile. “I’d forgotten about that. I’m not sure how relevant it is right now, but we might not find out until everything is over. So, let’s keep it in the discussion. Water is often associated with cleansing rituals and thoughts about purity. Vampires, though, don’t care about purity. They care about power and defilement.”
Forever Young - Book 3 Page 2
