“We didn’t even know anything about Santarém,” Tess told me. “Why?”
“Just a thought. We need to keep our options open.”
One of the passengers glanced over my shoulder. She was a little old lady, the kind you always find on public transportation or in grocery stores. They get involved with everyone’s business in the guise of being helpful, and sometimes it even worked out that they helped.
She pointed at the town and made a face, waving a hand. She spoke quickly in Portuguese and made another face.
“The lady, Mrs. Silveira, says they’ve had some bank robberies recently. She wouldn’t recommend going there.” Zarya met my eyes. “It does sound a little lawless, though we aren’t exactly the kind of tourists a town is looking for.”
I thanked the lady, mind racing. Had the bank robberies been related to vampire activity? It didn’t seem likely. Bank robberies tended to take place in the bright light of day. Bank robbers could be working for vampires, though, or they could have other agendas that weren’t helpful to us.
I glanced over at the other car. Most of the time, the devil you knew was better than the devil you didn’t. In this case, the opposite was true.
The other passengers started pushing back. They didn’t like the way we were crowding up toward the door, like we were trying to run into the other car. I couldn’t understand their words, but they could point and gesture enough to get their meaning across. Under no circumstances would we be allowed to pass into the other car, no way and no how.
“We’re so screwed if these people start panicking.” Tess looked up at me with those big dark eyes of hers. “We won’t be able to contain them.”
I hadn’t ever thought of myself as someone who “contained” people before. I guessed that was part of my job now, though. I’d better get good at it, and fast. I let my eyes run over the crowd. Who in the great mass of people was most likely to cause a problem? Who was going to lash out in fear? Who was going to work to calm their fellow travelers? Tess was right. If people panicked, we would have a stampede on our hands. If the passengers stampeded, our ability to flee would dry up entirely.
One man with a big, bushy mustache met my eyes for a moment and looked away. I didn’t think much of it, other than to note he seemed calmer than the others. We needed that sense of calm right now. I didn’t have time to analyze him beyond that. I saw a dark, maimed figure moving through the car behind ours. The vampire was coming our way, his steps twisted by pain and fury.
“I thought we’d have more time,” I muttered. “Well, that sucks.”
I didn’t know how he’d gotten around the barrier I’d left for him, but I hadn’t expected it to stop him forever. I would have to find another solution. Unfortunately, another disc of fire wasn’t going to work here. Half of the people in this car, fifty at least, would be trapped with the bastard.
Kamila clutched at my arm. “Jason, we have to evacuate these people. He’s going to use his mind control powers on them.” I hadn’t needed her to tell me that, but I didn’t chide her for stating the obvious.
I felt myself frown. There wasn’t anywhere for these people to go if they went to the front. They might be able to fill in the car to the rear. I didn’t want them to go into the car beyond that due to the damage and the lingering flames. The vampire and I had tossed each other around like sacks of flour, even before there was fire or cutting of metal. It was entirely possible the car wasn’t structurally sound anymore.
I needed more time. I turned around slowly, hoping to find some kind of inspiration in the faces of the people around me. There wasn’t any. The same face, in different shapes and hues and ages, looked back at me. I didn’t know if any of these people had seen the fight between me and the vampire, but they could see the shape I was in. It wasn’t hard for them to read the vampire’s body language. They could see he was chasing me. They might not know the specifics, but they weren’t stupid. They knew this wasn’t good.
The burned-out eyes on the monster approaching them might have been a big clue for them, too.
A child started to cry. A couple of people whimpered, although they didn’t say anything. It reminded me, in the starkest way possible, that these people had all had extensive experience with vampires before I showed up on the scene. While the property damage involved right now might be down to me, none of the rest of this mess was my fault. I was going to free them from the vampires’ yoke, even if it seemed momentarily worse.
Daisy tried to hide behind Kamila’s legs.
Tess looked over at me. The color had drained from her face. “Come on, Jason. You’ve got to have something in mind. He’s going to cook their minds.”
The urgency in her voice spurred me on.
I snapped my fingers. “How powerful is the mind control?” They would know better than I would. I had no idea what these things could do, and I hadn’t had time to conduct experiments.
Zarya gave me a funny look. “You want details about vampire abilities at a time like this?”
“Yeah, I do. I need to know just how strong this fucker is. Is he shutting their brain down completely? Is he just getting the conscious part? Is the conscious mind down but the subconscious active? What?” If I was supposed to get us out of here, I needed information. Why was it so hard for any of the older Ferin to understand that?
Kamila bit her lip. “It’s very powerful. Why?”
Was it possible she didn’t know? Was that why they didn’t want to give me specifics? Because they didn’t have specifics to give?
Adrenaline flooded my veins. What I had in mind was risky, but I was willing to give it a chance. If I didn’t, we’d wind up facing a much bigger mess than we’d started with. “Is it more powerful than the instinct for survival?”
9
The door slid open, and the enemy walked into the car. He’d had a commanding presence when we first saw him on the train. Now, he was simply grotesque. His mouth was healed, at least somewhat, but it remained scarred with thick, twisted keloidal bands that shone pink on his skin. That kind of inability to heal was new, and I understood his reserves were low. His eyes were still burned out; his hands blistered and burned. In some places, I could see the shocking white of bone.
The passengers shrank away from him and the horror of what I’d done to his face. I had no idea if they had seen me doing it, but they could tell it was recent. They could have smelled it. Someone repressed a shriek, and Tess stepped between the vampire and people. I stepped between Tess and the vampire. Hell if I was going to let him take out his aggression on her, not when my fire was wearing him down to little more than a cornered animal
The vampire did his best to smirk. His face might have been a wreck, but when he spoke, he did so in that deep, hypnotic voice of his again. “It is time for you to get up and leave the train car now. Stand up and move into the next car in an orderly fashion. Move silently. Do not speak. Do not cry. Do not run. Simply walk.”
All around us, people stood up. Some of them seemed to be moving reluctantly. I didn’t know if they just didn’t want to move from their seats or if they were actively resisting the vampire’s orders, but they weren’t moving as quickly as the crowd in the first car had been. The observation gave me some hope. The vampire—even his voice control—seemed diminished.
I knew the vampire would be busy focusing on evacuating the car for the moment, so I turned to the women. “Get ready, and don’t question anything. Just get ready.”
Tess looked uncertain, but Kamila nodded once.
Still with my back turned to the vampire, I created a spark in the palm of my hand. I watched it dance there for a minute, and then I tossed it up to the ceiling. As it rose, it grew, spreading out over the ceiling like a gas broiler igniting. It was a beautiful sight to see, and I could have stood there and stared at it for hours as the flame danced in a lurid curtain of heat and motion.
I closed my eyes for a second, asking the universe for forgiveness. Cupping my hands over my mout
h, I shouted, “Fire!”
A couple of the people resisting the vampire managed to break free long enough to look up. One of them screamed. It was enough. The dam broke, and chaos erupted, just like my flames.
The person who had screamed panicked and shoved at the person next to him, desperate to get out of the car. That person, jolted out of his hypnosis, threw a punch at the first. He missed, landed on his ass, and looked up. Now he, too, saw the fire. He panicked and ran for the exit, jolting everyone in his path awake and setting off a flurry of shouts and raw panic. It spread like a plague, and the people became a tangled mass of humanity fighting for their lives. They were free of the vampire thrall and moving like a school of fish going the same direction. To safety.
Zarya leaned in, a wicked grin on her face. “Nice,” she murmured. “Er, the place isn’t really on fire, is it?”
“No.” I grinned at her. “I’ve got the fire completely under control. You guys join the crowd. Play along. I need panic. I’ll follow along once we’re done here.” I needed to control the fire. The flame disc had been hard to pull off. This was a little easier in some respects, but it was harder in that the flames were shockingly close to some incredibly flammable items. Someone had to make sure they didn’t catch, and the vampire wasn’t allowed to kill me.
I pressed myself back up against the windows as the crowd surged toward the exit, screaming and sobbing. None of them had noticed the fire wasn’t making any smoke or heat yet, and I was okay with that. I’d take this kind of panic. I didn’t want to actually hurt anyone but the vampire.
A nice gambit. The vampire’s voice rang out in my head again. He couldn’t make himself loud enough to be heard over all the screaming people, so he had to resort to speaking into my mind. The panic will fade, and then I will have them. Again.
The passengers were trying to get into the car my women had been trying to get into, and the door was open. The sudden draft tugged my flames toward the new source of air, but I kept them where they belonged, in obedient sheets that continued to unfurl across the interior. The passengers stayed where they were, too. They had no choice. The other car was full.
Zarya caught my eye from where the crowd was pressed up against her. She made a megaphone of the map and shouted out in Portuguese. I couldn’t understand her, but she pointed toward the car through which I’d passed. I figured out what she was doing, and I added a little bit of flame going down toward the doorway and the overfull coach.
The crowd went wild. They ran toward the other car as fast as they could, so many people going so fast I was surprised it didn’t derail the train. At first, the enemy vampire withstood the flood of people. There were just too many of them, though. He fell to the floor under the onslaught. Vampires might be strong, powerful, and nigh invulnerable, but they still went down when over a hundred people trampled them in the aisle of a train coach. Herds are lethal to apex predators, and he was seeing this firsthand.
The door to the overfull coach slid closed again, and I let the little lick of flame slip back up toward the ceiling to join the others.
My flames never actually touched the ceiling. I was still being careful not to damage anything I didn’t absolutely have to. For one thing, someone was going to have to pay to repair the train. I knew it wasn’t my responsibility, but the Yankee in me just wasn’t going to wreck things for the sake of wrecking them. It wasn’t in me.
For another, my whole plan rested on drawing attention. People would remember a fight between a monster with a burned-out face and a guy shooting fire from his hands. They’d remember even more strongly a fire that didn’t leave burn marks behind. Better yet, all of this flash and noise meant people would remember the fight, the fire, and all of the effects—but they probably wouldn’t remember my face.
The vampire was on the floor now. I left him there and joined the panicked crowd running for the other car, screaming and yelling with the rest of the people just to blend in. It worked. No one looked at me twice as the crowd swept me along like a piece of flotsam on a hard tide.
I caught up to the women as fast as I could, sliding through the crowd like an eel as they remained oblivious to my nature. The other passengers were starting to calm down now; I could see the terror fading away as their faces became more placid. A few of them, crowded beyond belief, were filtering into the first car, the one we’d vacated. That wasn’t good because now they were confronted with my spinning disc of fire and the physical evidence of the fight. I grimaced and dismissed the flame disk with a muffled whoof. It had served its purpose, and now I knew I could do it. The last thing I wanted was for civilians to be burned trying to flee a mess I created.
The vampire was gone. He’d simply popped a window and crawled out onto the side of the car, clinging to the train with his inhuman strength. He could hold on to the side of the train, despite the intense speed and lack of real handholds. I, on the other hand, could not.
Kamila turned to me. “That was exciting. Any more new tricks up your sleeve?”
I wiped some of the sweat from my brow and glanced out the window. We were heading for a tunnel, one of the ones that took us under a tributary for the Amazon. That was the last place I wanted to be, especially considering who and what might be waiting for us under there.
Was it possible for Patagonia to be a tunnel, just like that one?
I pushed the thought away. I would worry about survival first, then about identifying and finding Patagonia.
“How far are we from Uruará?” I glanced over at Zarya, who held the map.
She glanced at the document. “It shouldn’t be more than a few more minutes, but Jason, that’s not where we’re supposed to be going. We’re supposed to be going to Belém, and we’ve got several hours’ ride ahead of us before we get there.”
I shook my head. “We have to be able to adapt. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to put these good people through another what? Fifteen hours of Happy Vampire Cage Match. It’s only a matter of time before we have mass casualties.”
Tess poked my ribs, sending a flood of tears directly to my eyes.
“Before someone who won’t heal gets hurt,” I amended. I kept my voice steady, but I couldn’t hide the strain that came with pain. “We’ll figure it out once we hit the ground. I just hope we can make it to Uruará.”
I took stock of the other travelers in our coach. Most of them had tear-streaked faces. All of them were staring at the four of us. Some of them looked at us with suspicion, and others looked at us with curiosity. Most of them looked to us like they were waiting for orders.
One of them, the one with the mustache, just looked at us. I didn’t know what to make of the look he was giving, but it didn’t make me at all comfortable. There was something akin to recognition there, and that struck my Ferin nerves in a way that resonated with unseen danger.
Kamila nodded. “I’m with Jason,” she said. “I’m not ready to hang up my boots just yet. At the very least—and I do mean very—we’ll be able to draw the vampires off and keep them from using these people like their own private herd of cattle.”
“The vampire I was fighting had already fed from one of them before we fought.” My stomach gave a lurch. I knew what they were and what they did, of course, but every time I thought of it, I wanted to puke.
“We know.” Tess set her jaw. “We couldn’t stop him. We’ll pull them away and keep them from getting any more. That’s about all we can do.”
“I know.” I sighed. They wouldn’t have been on that train if not for me, but they’d have gone after someone else wherever they were.
“So.” Zarya brightened. Her cheer seemed artificial, but there was something to be said for faking it until you make it. She was making the best of a bad situation. “Uruará, hmm? We’ll have to figure out how to get—well, anywhere from there, but I think we can do it if we put our minds to it. We’ve all gotten out of worse situations before. We can do it again.”
“Damn straight, we can.”
I just hoped we could make it to the town or village. Whichever it was, I’d consider us lucky if we could make it to daylight.
10
The train slowed and descended slightly. I was watching the sky when it happened. What had been a simply dark and starlit view became pitch black.
We had entered the tunnel.
The only light available now was the ghastly dim light provided by the train car. The light was deliberately low because it was late at night and the authorities presumably wanted people to sleep, which I guessed I could understand. Around us, the shadows cast gave everyone a deathly pallor, with deep eye sockets and pale skin. I suppressed a curse and tried to ascertain our rate of descent. It was mild, but present.
It took a few minutes for the telltale jolt that let us know the train had leveled itself out. We’d found the flat point of the tunnel deep underneath the river. My pain made me wish that we could stay here and rest, unmolested by creatures who regarded humans as little more than cattle.
The warrior in me wanted to reach the surface. Now. Anything could be down here waiting for us, and I understood the limitations our position would put upon my ability to fight back if the vampires attacked. I knew the walls weren’t actually touching the train, but we couldn’t see more than an inch or two past the panes of the windows. The darkness was pervasive, total, and menacing.
The tunnel was an engineering marvel. It went so far under the rainforest as to be undetectable, and it had no effect a layman could see on the resources above. They probably couldn’t do any mining over it, but mining in this area was forbidden anyway. It was the perfect blend of technology and preservation, and I whistled appreciatively as the train continued through the dark.
Tess spoke low, her voice tight with strain. “I don’t like this.” She took my hand and gave it a little squeeze.
I squeezed back, but I had no reassuring words to offer. Beautiful and impressive as this place was, I couldn’t be comfortable either. Not when I felt like we’d just been swallowed, like Jonah in the belly of the whale. We weren’t exposed, but we were certainly trapped.
Forever Young - Book 3 Page 5
