Forever Young - Book 3

by Daniel Pierce

  25

  I grabbed Tess’s shoulder, since she was the one closest to me. “Watch out for rock slides.” I didn’t know if I could create one, but I was damned sure going to try.

  I focused on the cliffs. It wasn’t easy, but I trusted the women to defend me from the thousand enslaved people here, surging toward us, egged on by the vampire and his endless well of mental powers.

  Zarya did the bulk of the work. She looked at me and nodded. Then she took a deep breath and summoned a massive wall of water, not unlike the cyclone I’d conjured to defend her island back in Belize. It swirled around us at a frantic pace, wailing like a banshee. The favela residents couldn’t get through it, and while the vampire controlling them could certainly push them closer, he couldn’t make them walk into it. We’d figured that part out on the train. Human instinct superseded vampire control, and we counted on that to be true here as well.

  The other girls kept watch, picking off vampires who were stupid enough to stagger through the tumult of water, emerging drenched and disoriented. Their ashes were reduced to smears with each successive kill.

  My plan was simple. I would use the earth to cause fear that overwhelmed the vampire’s hold on the people around us. Survival instincts are powerful; written in the very core of what it means to be human. With that in mind, I extended my consciousness into the earth itself. The favela felt like an oozing sore, throbbing with pain and infection. It wasn’t the people causing it, but the lack of sanitation or any real way of dealing with the inevitable results of so many people living in one place.

  Beneath our feet, the earth howled.

  I sent my awareness snaking through the cliff walls on either side of the favela, looming over us like evil sentinels. The problem with what I was trying to do here was that I hadn’t consciously reshaped anything in Mexico. Every earth event had been instinctual. This would be intentional.

  I pushed at the rock, and the earth pushed back.

  Then, it began to shake. Most of the people around us took no notice. They kept surging toward the wall of water around us, unable to go anywhere but unable to stop. Some of them shook their heads, waking up from the daze of vampiric control. They could do little more than scream and try to run, but that was all I needed.

  All I wanted was chaos.

  I pushed harder. This time, I added a little bit of water to the mix. I pulled some from the soil itself and added some I generated by myself. This made it easier, even if increasing the gravity to the cliff made my knees buckle. The sludge I created began to bubble like a simmering volcano, steam rising as the ground bucked in wild, sinuous waves.

  I couldn’t let myself fall, because the crowd would tear me to pieces. Zarya was hanging on by a thread, and I knew it. I had to get this done. A few rocks tumbled down, their clattering presence little more than an irritation to the mass of people pushing forward against the waters. With each impact, someone broke free of the mind control, then the resulting shrieks helped a few more people shake themselves loose, each person turning to run with naked fear in their eyes.

  I poured everything I had into my next attempt. Blood spooled from my nose as I reached my hand out toward the cliff and pulled. This time, the land itself gave a mighty groan and tumbled down in an explosive spray of rocky shrapnel.

  That was enough.

  The whole crowd broke free. Their instinct to save themselves was stronger than anything the vampire could do to them. It might have been different if the vampire had been able to focus on one of them at a time, but with a thousand people to corral, he wasn’t able to pull it off. Previously enslaved people screamed and ran, unsure of where to go but damned sure they didn’t want to be where they were.

  I gestured again, acting like a magnet. The massive bulk of the cliff would normally just have fallen straight down thanks to gravity, but I would not let that happen. It would have taken out a huge number of the shanties in the favela, destroying homes and killing people the vampire considered too useless even for a vacant herd under his control. I directed the fall not toward true shanties, but toward the vampires’ artificial compound.

  It landed with a monstrous boom they could probably hear in Santarém, sending up a shower of dirt, concrete, and metal shards that spun wildly through the air. People screamed and wailed, running in all directions and none. It must have seemed like the world was ending. To the people dependent on the vampires to feed their drug habits, the world might well be ending.

  I’d achieved my chaos. My head was spinning, my nose was bleeding, and my entire sense of equilibrium was off, but I’d created the chaos I needed in order to get us out of this.

  Zarya dropped the wall of water, and we bolted.

  We ran for the road out of the favela, but it wasn’t going to be easy to get away. Panicky people were easier to deal with than a thousand mindless drones attacking at once, but we still had to dodge through them. And we still had vampires to contend with—vampires who knew exactly what had caused that “miraculous” landslide.

  One of them jumped in front of us as we tried to sneak through the exit road. His eyes were red with fury, and his fangs were already out. “Did you think you accomplished something here, cattle?” I could barely understand him because the fangs made it so hard for him to speak clearly. “We will bury you!”

  “Easy, Khrushchev.” Kamila snapped her fingers, and the vampire exploded in flame, turning to ash within a second. We kept running.

  Someone in the crowd had the good sense to get the cable car running again. It didn’t typically run after dark, as the view of the rainforest was a daytime activity. The car was a much safer option than trying to run all the way back to the main part of the city through the jungle, while dodging wildlife and vampires. None of us needed any part of that. I directed them wordlessly toward the cable car platform, and we headed over.

  Our way was blocked by three vampires, and once again, I had to shake my head in naked disbelief. Uruará wasn’t that big. How could such a small town sustain so many parasites? Lila took out the first one with a well-placed throwing knife. Tess got the second, and I found the strength from somewhere to torch the third. We didn’t give them time to brag and posture. We gave the death instead.

  It took us ten minutes to get to the platform. We got up to the top of the stairs after a long, sweaty, painful run, and I sagged onto one of the benches. I—we—needed a minute to breath.

  We would not get it. The first sign that we’d been followed was the sudden appearance of a vampire at the top of the stairs. He’d made no sound. He might not have walked up at all. Two more vampires showed up beside him, winking into existence on his right and his left.

  I flashed back to Dalmont, who’d popped in and out of view so fast I couldn’t lift a finger in my own defense.

  I glanced over at the cable. The light from the car gleamed in the distance. It would be here soon, but not soon enough.

  I knew a fireball or disc wouldn’t work because the vampire would just vanish before it hit him. If I set the vampire himself on fire, though, it might carry through wherever he went. If I made the fire internal, burning him from the inside out like a coal seam, my odds of success went up. I didn’t know if I had the energy left to pull it off, but I knew I had to try.

  I locked eyes with the one in front and let loose. He vanished, but I could still feel him burning. When he winked back into view behind me, smoke was pouring out of his ears. He had time to open his mouth, letting out a stream of flame, and then he collapsed into ash.

  The cable car had gotten closer.

  One of the other vampires flashed over to Lila. I didn’t know if he expected her to just scream like an extra in a horror movie or what, but she was ready for him. She stabbed him in the heart with one of her throwing knives, killing him instantly.

  The cable car was almost to the station now, but it was slowing down for the final approach. Time dragged. The cable hummed. A vampire hissed, trying to slash Zarya with his claws. He even m
ade contact, slicing across her arm with a vicious cut that made me wince. She didn’t flinch. She summoned her water blade like a shimmering spectre and beheaded him before he could teleport away.

  The cable car pulled into the station, and its doors opened with an audible groan. The car was empty, and we slipped in with a collective sigh of relief. The lighting was garish and destroyed any chance we had of looking out, but we didn’t care. We only wanted to rest and lick our wounds.

  “Well, that was harrowing.” Tess sat up and shook her head vigorously, like a dog shaking itself dry. Little bits of ash flew from her hair. “Let’s try to avoid that in the future, shall we?”

  “You won’t get an argument from me.” All of the adrenaline left my body then. We’d made it. We were safe, or at least safe enough. We were high above anything that could hurt us, and we had an hour to go before we would have to fight again. I figured I’d be able to fight if I had to with an hour’s rest. “How in the hell are they managing to sustain such a big vampire population? I mean, they’ve got so many, they can just throw themselves at us and die, and they just don’t care.”

  “Well, they’re not exactly known for caring about each other.” Kamila tore a strip from her shirt to bandage up Zarya’s arm. “But you’re right. Even in a favela, the authorities should take notice. And the favela would stop existing if there were so many people dying at such a high rate, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’d think so.” Zarya snorted. “Seriously, though, I’m dying to know.” She used her good arm to push her hair out of her face.

  The door to the conductor’s booth slammed open, and another vampire stepped out. He leered at us. “Fortunately for us, you’ll never have to worry about the answer to that question.” He grinned, savage and foul, and lunged for us.

  “God damn it.” I had nothing left. Nothing, that was, but my body. I tackled the monster.

  It shouldn’t have worked. I was strong, and I was fast, but I was still only Ferin. He was a vampire. I didn’t know if he was just shocked, or if the curse didn’t take him the way it took some other people, because I took him down hard.

  “Get the doors open,” I growled.

  Tess and Kamila struggled to open the doors. They weren’t supposed to open while the cable car was in use, but Ferin were strong. They got the doors open, and I hustled the vampire over to the edge.

  “I’m a vampire, asshole. The fall won’t kill me,” he crowed.

  “No, but we will.” Zarya cut off his head with her water blade. I threw him out, and he turned to ash as he fell. The wind distributed his ashes, assuring us he was dead. Forever.

  Lila ran into the driver’s booth. “I don’t suppose you thought this part through,” she teased and slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Sure did,” I said.

  “Good,” Lila said, slumping back with relief.

  26

  We landed back in Uruará proper and hit the ground running, but no one followed us, probably because the sun flirted with the horizon.

  I grabbed Tess’s arm to get her attention. “Hey. What was with that phone call you got?”

  She blushed. It was a pretty sight. She wasn’t the kind of girl to blush often, so I enjoyed the view. “It was . . . well, it was my contact who clued us in to the warehouse in Belém. He was worried when we didn’t show up.”

  “Nice to know someone cares,” Kamila drawled as she fed Daisy. The poor dog devoured the kibble almost before Kamila could get it into the bowl.

  “Yeah, well, they wouldn’t keep the network up if they didn’t.” Tess shrugged her shoulders, and I remembered they hadn’t exactly been on friendly terms before Tess and I headed down to Virginia. “Anyway, he said he’s got a message for us and we should meet up.”

  Zarya looked around the hotel room. “Well,” she said slowly. “It’s not as though we can stay here anymore.”

  “Valid.” I wrinkled my nose. While the huge, sunny windows gave us some degree of reassurance during daylight, we had no way of knowing how many vampires might still be out there in Uruará. I wanted to put this place behind us as soon as possible. Besides, I didn’t want anyone from the favela to see me and associate me with the devastating earthquake that had caused so much panic and trouble. “Belém is as good a place as any, I guess.”

  “I don’t know.” Tess nibbled on the first knuckle of her hand. “Isn’t that where we were going in the first place? Won’t the vampires suspect that’s where we’re going anyway?”

  “The train to Belém connects to another one, the one to Paço do Lumiar.” Lila pushed her dark curls back over her shoulder. “It isn’t out of the question that you’d have planned to move on. It’s also the only way to connect to Rio from here.”

  “So it’s not a given for Belém to be our last stop.” Tess nodded a couple of times. “All right. I’m a little more comfortable with it. And the train shouldn’t be a target this time. They won’t want to draw the attention. They might have the country in a strong grip, but they still don’t want to be so damn blatant.”

  “Wait, the train was a target?” Lila turned to look at each of us in turn. “How does the train system get to be a target?”

  I ducked my head. “Er, I might have set it on fire. But only a little bit, and it was for a good cause.”

  “It was the fangs that derailed it.” Kamila smirked. “You took advantage of that fact, but they did the deed. You’re hardly responsible for it.”

  Lila’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “Okay, now you have to tell me more.”

  Tess laughed and explained how the mind-controlling vampire had been on the train, and she detailed everything we’d gone through. For my part, I took a quick shower. I couldn’t go out in daylight looking like I did.

  Having a new person—and a woman of rare beauty—around during the downtime wasn’t easy. I wasn’t sleeping with her, although I’d have been happy to start, even in my exhausted state.

  She was that stunning.

  If I’d been alone with my little family, I wouldn’t have worried about stripping down and heading for the shower, but that kind of thing would be frowned upon here. I had to carry clean clothes into the bathroom. Body shame felt weird after so long living freely.

  I washed up as quickly as I could and rejoined the others. All of our things were packed up when I got out, and we paid our bill and left the hotel. I asked Lila if she needed to stop and get anything, but she declined. “I want to get going. I don’t want to endanger anyone I’d be leaving behind. You never know who might be watching.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  We got tickets, and this time we sprang for luxury accommodations in a family-sized sleeper car. Sitting in with the crowd hadn’t saved anyone the last time, not us nor the civilians. It had only endangered them, and that was the last thing I wanted. A sleeper car would be easier to defend, and it would give us more privacy to speak.

  It would be more comfortable, too. When I sat down, all the running and fighting of the past few days caught up to me in a wave of penetrating exhaustion. My muscles stiffened and my headache returned. Zarya gave me a speculative look, and she and Tess disappeared to get food and drinks for everyone. They came back fifteen minutes later, laden with superb Brazilian treats and bottles of water, cold and clear.

  “We’re going to be sitting here for a while,” Zarya told us. “Fourteen hours or so, if I remember correctly. There’s no reason not to use the time to rest and recover.”

  All of us nodded, even Lila. Daisy hopped up onto Kamila’s bunk to share her space, and Kamila pulled one of the stolen books from her backpack. Tess did the same, and Zarya curled up in her bunk and dozed off.

  I sat on my bunk with a breakfast sandwich and a bottle of water. Lila sat down next to me. “Is it normal to feel like this?” she asked me with a wry grin. She too had food and water. “I’m famished, but I don’t want to eat. I’m exhausted, but even sitting still is making my skin crawl.”

  I chuckled. “S
ounds about right,” I told her. “I’ve only been doing this for a few months, but every time I go through something big like that, I do wind up kind of—I don’t know—hyped up, I guess. It’s hard to turn it off when you’re done, you know? I’m not sure how these ladies do it.”

  “Practice,” Kamila said without looking up from her book.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.” I laughed and took a bite from my sandwich. “That probably has a lot to do with it. I’m a lot closer to your age than theirs, so it’ll be a while before I get to their level of nonchalance. But honestly, what we just did was phenomenal. I’ve never gone quite so far, you know? I’ve sure as hell never done the earthquake thing.”

  “Well now you have,” Tess told me with a little grin. “Seriously, that was impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Me neither.” I rubbed at my face. “It was a long shot, and I feel bad for anyone whose house I inadvertently crushed. But I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You didn’t.” Lila put her hand on my arm. “Don’t let yourself worry too much about it. You couldn’t have stopped it. You couldn’t let them kill us, and the vampires wouldn’t have released them any other way. I know it’s hard, but you did the right thing.”

  “I know I did.” I looked away. I’d taken something away from all of these people who had nothing at all. It didn’t matter that they’d been controlled by someone else at the time. I was still the one who’d made their lives worse. “So Lila, it’s obvious to me that you know what you’re doing. You showed up to the party with silver knives. Tell me more about you. Most humans wouldn’t know what to do with a vampire, and they’d be too scared to try if they did know. What makes you so different, and perhaps even more importantly, why are you so comfortable being around us?”

  “Around you?” she asked.

  “Yes. Us. The Ferin. The people who are human but not really, and the people who’ve been turning vampires into ashes with fire and water and”—I grinned at Kamila—“the occasional sweet-ass punch. Tell me why you’re not felling in the opposite direction.”