Forever Young - Book 3

by Daniel Pierce

  I opened my mouth to say I didn’t generally carry a compass around in my head, but then I stopped. My earth powers had a side effect I’d never considered, not even briefly. No one had ever asked me which direction something was in. I just followed streets or maps or whatever, like I always had. Like anyone would. Now, though, I could feel the pull of the north pole. I was a compass needle.

  I laughed out loud, startling a few of the onlookers out of their hostility for a few seconds. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, we do.”

  I aimed myself toward the northwestern section of the favela and started walking. The others exchanged glances. They probably thought I’d lost my mind. Then again, they had all accepted the whole “earth powers” thing long before I had. Whatever the reason, they were all perfectly willing to follow me. My direction was as good as any.

  The deeper we got into the favela, the worse it got. We passed whole sections that had been burned out, only to see new shanties built right on the ashes. People lived alongside their animals, whether they were pets, livestock, or feral creatures that just tagged along for the ride. I’d never seen rats outside during daylight before, but here, they poked their little noses out and chattered away, bold and fearless.

  I couldn’t quite tell how old anyone was. I did see a lot of children, which didn’t surprise me at all. What entertainment might people here have, except for sex? And so far, I hadn’t passed any kind of clinic—not even a general health clinic, never mind a women’s health clinic that might help people not get pregnant. Once people got old enough to start having children, though, they seemed to age quickly. I blamed diet, uncertainty, and the environment. It was a blight on the land filled with ghosts, ignored by the rich as little more than a sad rumor.

  We passed buildings that were clearly businesses of a sort, although it didn’t take much to see that the tax collector probably didn’t come around much. These bars probably didn’t have liquor licenses. The brothels definitely weren’t licensed. The hotel had made it clear in their “guest information” book that brothels were illegal in Brazil, so the buildings we passed with many scantily clad women and girls hanging around the front couldn’t be government sanctioned. And the people operating roadside stands to peddle street drugs probably didn’t have the blessing of the government or the Church either.

  We didn’t pass any schools. We didn’t pass any churches. We didn’t see any kind of services being provided that might have helped anyone living here, even to get stitches after a bar fight.

  The favela smelled like poverty. There wasn’t really a way to describe the stink, except to remind people that we already knew the favela didn’t get municipal services like a sewer or trash pickup. Some enterprising people had taken an old dumpster and put it into the middle of one of the paths, and now it served as a kind of incinerator for anyone who wanted to use it. Unfortunately, that meant anyone who had anything to burn went there. Animal carcasses, both food animals and any scavengers lying around, went onto the pyre with regular food waste, diapers, and the assorted waste products from everyday living. Human waste went there too. Plastic products burned, and rubber. The result was a vile pall that hung over the entire neighborhood, visible to the eye and leaving a fine particulate on almost everything it touched. I wanted to recoil, but I didn’t dare in front of people who saw any hint of vulnerability as an excuse to mug or murder.

  My women and I were all immune to the effects of toxic smoke, both short and long term. None of the people living here were. How much had this disposal method, obviously a necessary expedient, shortened their lives?

  By the time we made it to the northwest corner of the favela, I recognized where we were. This was the “upscale” area we’d noticed from the cable car, the one with the nicer buildings and the little fence. We hadn’t been mistaken or deceived when we saw it from above, only confused by its proximity to the center of the favela. The shadow of the giant half-finished apartment building loomed over us all.

  The place really had been built to last. Now that we were here, I could see up close and personal that the building would be here for years. No light passed through it, unlike the other structures we saw. The fence only looked decrepit. In fact, it was downright sturdy. The plants growing near the posts thrived in the grim conditions and hid remarkably solid construction.

  “Interesting,” I pointed out to the ladies, who all agreed with me. This had to be where the vampires were.

  We hid in the shadows created by a two-story structure built from what looked like reclaimed car parts and cinderblocks and watched to see if anyone went in or out. We didn’t intend to confront anyone. In fact, we didn’t expect to see anyone at all. We just figured we would take stock and see what was going on here. We didn’t come into this part of town today to fight, just to get information. Our main concern in the moment was hoping the building we used for cover didn’t fall on us.

  We watched for a long time before anything happened, while favela life went on around us. A kid maybe seven years old tried to pick my pocket. I didn’t have anything in my pockets. Kamila had all the money. She gave him twenty reals to go away. If he’d been older, there might have been a fight. Thankfully, he was too young to try to push back. He scuttled away with his prize, wary at how we’d dismissed him so easily.

  Finally, someone slouched down the street toward the house. It took me a moment to recognize him, given that he was covered in soot, grime, and dirt. I did recognize him before he opened the door to the hut, though. He was average height, with dark skin and curly hair that had one or two blond streaks in it. And he had a big, bushy mustache.

  He was still wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing on the train. Had it only been yesterday? The clothes had been through the wringer, but no one in this part of town would notice or care. I’d thought this guy was a vampire, but if he was out and about during daylight, clearly he was not. He was just working for them, an employee.

  I’d suspected the vampires had employees. This was just confirmation. A fucking traitor to humanity, I thought, spitting on the ground to clear my mouth.

  We watched a few more people go in and out. Most of them were human, or looked human anyway. They didn’t stay long. They looked frightened. Some looked sad. Some looked desperate. These were the kinds of looks I expected to see on people who went to drug dealers, not to vampire dens. Had we read everything wrong?

  After a little while, activity stopped. I turned to the others. “We need to go in.”

  “You’re insane.” Tess recoiled. “They’re vampires. They want to kill us.”

  “What if they’re not vampires, though? What if they’re just criminal assholes?” I sighed. “Why would people treat it like a drug den if they’re vampires? It doesn’t make sense. We have to go and find out.”

  “This was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission only.” Zarya protested.

  “I agree with you, but the fact is that we’re coming up with more questions than answers.” Kamila sighed. “Also, I’d like to get out of here before that kid comes back with his friends.”

  We crept up to the door. I couldn’t hear anything going on inside. To be sure, vampires could be stealthy, but they didn’t tend to be active in broad daylight. I looked over at Tess, and she stepped forward.

  Tess reached into her pocket for a second. She pulled something out and fussed with the lock, and after a quick moment, the door slid open. We waited, but nothing happened. We stepped inside.

  We were ready for a fight. The place might have sounded empty, but we knew the chances it actually was empty were minimal. Once we got inside, though, we found the shack was empty.

  Appearances had not deceived us. This shack was better built than others in the neighborhood. The only daylight that got in was from the windows, all of which had blackout curtains over them. The air in here was ten times better than the air outside. The pink walls were in fact solid concrete, with an external veneer of cinderblock to make them blend in.

  No, t
hat would have stood out here. The outer walls would have been built first. These interior walls would have been built later, when the neighbors couldn’t see.

  I stepped carefully on the threadbare throw rugs thrown liberally around the floor. On the surface of things, the shack looked much like any of the others belonging to the locals. The walls were the first big clue that something was different. The emptiness was the next. No one who actually lived in this area would just leave the house vacant for any length of time. Someone else would just move in and take it over. That was the way things worked around here. Real property was not a thing.

  I was getting to be an expert, and I hadn’t been here twenty-four hours.

  There wasn’t much in the way of amenities in here—certainly not enough to justify the care that had been taken with the walls, or the little picket fence and garden outside. The shack consisted of one room, with a folding chair, a card table, some throw rugs, and some very small baggies. If I were looking for a drug den, this was what I’d expect to find.

  Well, except for the whole part with the reinforced walls.

  I licked my lips and kicked one of the rugs aside.

  Zarya tilted her head to the side. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “None of this makes sense.” I kept my voice down. “Something about this just doesn’t work. We didn’t see Captain Mustache come out, but we know he went in. He can’t have gone up, so he must have gone down.”

  Kamila and Tess both nodded. All three of them fanned out, checking the walls for any kind of secret passage trigger. I kept kicking the rugs aside, looking for a pit or a door.

  Finally, I found what I wanted. The lines of the trap door were barely visible in the floor, but I picked them out in the concrete. A small rope handle stuck out just enough for my fingers to grasp. I picked it up and pulled, eager to find what lay beneath.

  A huge blade dropped from the ceiling toward my head.

  18

  The blade narrowly missed me. It trimmed the split ends off a lock of my wild hair. We all had quick reflexes, so we were able to drop and roll to the other sides of the room. It wasn’t graceful. Kamila sprawled into the north corner, red hair wild against the concrete floor. Zarya used one of the area rugs as a sled, sliding forward on it and into the wall with an inelegant thump. Tess dropped and rolled into a corner, the only one of us who came away with anything like dignity.

  My heart thundered against my ribcage. The trap had been a little too close for comfort. I’d had some near-fatal experiences, but those had all been during fights. This had been the first time I’d faced anything driven by a clever desire to maim or kill.

  “Well,” I said, trying to regain my composure, “Either that’s not the way to get what we want, or we didn’t do it right.” I stopped trying for stealth, figuring that springing the trap was the same as announcing our presence with a bullhorn.

  Tess frowned, looking altogether pissy. Her dark hair had gotten disheveled as she dove out of the way, but otherwise, she was unharmed. I guessed the close call had frayed her nerves. She never did well when we had near misses. “Well, there has to be some kind of hidden exit or entry or something. It’s not like he could just disappear.” She threw her hands up and headed to the back of the house, looking for some other passage we might have missed.

  I ground my teeth, because Tess was right. People—even vamps—didn’t vanish into thin air. I ran my fingers along broad swaths of wall, looking for any kind of sign a doorway might be hidden there. As near as I could tell, the wall was perfectly smooth, with no way for a hidden doorway to appear. Mustache Guy might as well have turned to smoke and gone up the chimney, which violated every physical law I could think of.

  Kamila straightened up and smoothed her clothes. She narrowed her eyes and peered across the room. “See that?” She pointed at the window closest to the left. It wasn’t much of a window, blocked out completely by a ratty old blackout shade, but at least it had curtains.

  I stared at it for several seconds. It looked like any other window cord. Had someone dosed Kamila? No, Ferin were immune to most drugs, especially the psychoactive ones. Then I figured it out. I blinked twice. “There aren’t any cords on the other curtains. The cord has to be the trigger for whatever secret door there might be.”

  We all stared at the cord, then I shrugged.

  “Well, okay. I’ll be the guinea pig.” I stepped forward, but this time, I did so with more awareness in case we were in the Temple of Doom.

  I brushed my fingertips against the cord. I hadn’t even grasped it between my fingers yet, but apparently I didn’t have to. Something hit my legs and knocked me to the floor. As I fell, I grabbed the cord. I’d only grabbed it as a reflex action, but the end result was the same. I fell, and I pulled the cord with me.

  A taut wire shot out from the wall at neck height. It made no sound as it flew toward us. The wire crossed the room at breakneck speed, like something slicing through cheese, and disappeared into the wall on the other side. My neck—all of our necks—would have been sliced clean through if we’d been standing.

  When I looked back at both walls, no hint of a seam remained. It was impossible, but true. No one could have seen it, and no one could have predicted its existence—unless they knew it was there. A perfect trap.

  I turned around, still on the floor, to get a look at whatever had knocked me down. I expected to see some kind of weapon, something thrown from the street, maybe. Instead, I saw Hoodie Guy. He’d made it back from wherever he dumped the tourist. Anger welled up in my chest. This person was human, mortal. They had no business hanging around with Ferin, where they could get killed just by association. And they had even less business frolicking around vampires.

  “What the hell are you doing, man?” I sat up, sputtering.

  Hoodie Guy pushed his hood back, and I couldn’t refer to him as Hoodie Guy ever again. Hoodie Guy was a woman, and a beautiful one at that. Her thick, dark hair hung in a ponytail down her back, and her big brown eyes met mine fearlessly. “It looks to me like I’m saving your life, man.” She leaped to her feet, pure grace, and offered me her hand.

  I got up on my own. “It’s not safe for you to be here.”

  I needed her to get to safety. As a civilian in this fight, this woman was in even more danger than the rest of us. I could get stabbed in the arm, the leg, even the liver or kidney and get up to fight again the next morning. The only thing that could hurt me was decapitation or direct damage to the heart. Humans weren’t that lucky, and this girl had a generous spirit. I didn’t want to be the reason she died.

  The girl was oblivious to my concerns. Her eyes danced merrily. “Remind me which one of us has nearly been decapitated twice today? I’d guess it’s safer for me to be here than for certain foreigners with wild dark hair, but I could be wrong.” She winked at me and went to stand near Tess and Zarya.

  I opened my mouth to argue, then grinned at her. She couldn’t know about the vampires possibly lying in wait under our feet. “How did you know about it, anyway? There was no sound, no line in the wall to hint it was there.”

  She smirked. “I might have seen it happen a time or two.” Then she sobered up and leaned against the wall. “This whole room is filled with mechanisms designed to make sure anyone who doesn’t know about them doesn’t get any farther into this building. They are—complex.”

  “But you know about them?” Zarya didn’t sound hostile, at least not to me. She just sounded curious. Zarya was curious about everything, which made her a perfect interrogator.

  “I do. As I mentioned, I’ve seen them work before. Some of them, anyway. I don’t know if anyone’s seen them all. I don’t know if they were all even built by the same person. I should have warned you about them before you came down here. I apologize for that. You passed that moron off to me—and you were right to pass him off to someone since he needed to get to a hospital—and I was distracted.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to soften toward h
er. I thought it was dangerous because she was still an unknown quantity. “Thanks for taking him out of here. Only one of us even speaks Portuguese, so we wouldn’t have been at all useful.”

  She snorted and curled her lip a little. “Why would someone who doesn’t speak the language—any of the languages around here—come spelunking in the favela? You should have sent someone who knows the languages instead.”

  “Does it help to know we weren’t planning to come to Brazil in the first place? It wasn’t something we got a whole lot of say in,” I said.

  “Yeah, it was kind of a last-minute thing.” Zarya smiled thinly at the strange woman. I realized I’d come close to revealing too much. The girl knew something, but I had no way of knowing how much. I needed to be more careful. “So, the room is trapped?”

  The local woman nodded. “Yes, with many traps. No one knows just how many.”

  “Booby traps.” I looked at the others. Booby traps had to mean we were on the right track. It still all felt like a kids’ cartoon, but I’d take it if it meant we got somewhere real.

  She frowned prettily. “Booby traps? The mechanisms in this room are much more sophisticated than that. Some of them aren’t even designed to kill you or even hurt you. The goal is to stop the uninitiated from getting into places they’re not supposed to be, and to do it by any means necessary. Your death is just one way of accomplishing that.”

  I rubbed my neck. “Really? Because that blade sounded pretty sharp.”

  “That one was designed to kill, true. So was the other one. These guys like to go for the neck. I think it’s a fetish.” She gave a little laugh at her own joke. Did she know it was a joke? There wasn’t a polite way to find out. “Some of them are puzzles that have to be solved or overcome to let the user pass through. They’re very complicated. There’s more than one way to get out. Of course, if you run afoul of one of the fatal ones, well, it’s bad for you.”