“You experienced the cell in the bowels of the fortress deep within Mictlan, where Valerius and Bryne were kept for eons,” Sienna said brusquely. “Now stop wasting time with inane questions. We have a lot of ground to cover before nightfall.”
I eyed the sun, which hovered just above the eastern horizon. “We still have at least twelve hours, Vogel. What’s the hurry?”
Vogel shrugged her fine-boned shoulders. “Fine. If you want to be stuck in the middle of a baking desert at high noon, that’s your business. I can’t feel the heat any longer, so it’s no skin off my nose if you want to make things difficult for yourself.”
I trudged ahead of her, hiding my embarrassment with a scowl. Of course, she was right. Ewan and I weren’t likely to die of heatstroke, but Dom might. I realized with a start that he was the only one of our party still technically alive, and we were heading towards a kingdom specifically built to keep out the living.
If it got too hot, perhaps we could find a place to bed down in the mountains and wait until nightfall. Though I had a feeling heatstroke wasn’t the greatest challenge we’d face on our journey through hell.
The path was wide enough for all five of us to walk abreast. Findlay kept pace with me easily, no longer fettered by trifles like breathing or weariness. Ewan followed, the strain barely showing on his face, though he was loaded down with what had to be about two hundred pounds of armor and assorted weaponry. Dom followed last, red-faced and puffing by the time we’d gotten halfway to the mountains.
The featureless landscape was almost as oppressive as the dry heat, especially once we were out of site of the doorway we’d entered through. The comforting tug of thread on my wrist was the only thing keeping me from outright panic. There was always an out if I needed one.
“You need to work on your stamina, Nikki-boy!” Ewan said cheerfully, reaching back to clap Dom on the shoulder. Dominic frowned at the nickname, and nearly staggered beneath the blow.
“Not all of us can be genocidal monsters,” he huffed. Then his eyes flickered guiltily to meet mine.
“No offense,” he added.
“None taken,” I lied.
Though I tried not to think of anything but the journey ahead, the open landscape and monotonous drudgery made my mind wander. It kept drifting back to my conversation with Dom, just before the spirit had turned up. In my naive youth, I’d never doubted that we’d end up together. But when Cat had been sacrificed, he’d testified against me, and I’d almost been executed for the alleged murder attempt. In the years since, Dom made no move to stop Findlay from hounding me, and he’d only been of marginal help tracking down her cure. Then he’d shot me in cold blood, condemning me to be the lifelong host of an infernal parasite bent on world domination.
Not exactly the stuff of romance.
It was the sort of thing that could make a girl hesitate before saying yes to the dress.
But now he was risking his life on this mad quest to stop Ewan. He’d been supportive, agreeable. He’d seen me at my worst and was still by my side. No matter what, I could always count on Dom to do the right thing. It was annoying and endearing at the same time.
At any rate, it wasn’t the time to daydream about white picket fences. In all likelihood, Ewan would kill me and destroy the world. And even if I survived, I couldn’t even picture any kind of peaceful life, after promising myself to Volkar and pissing off two of the most powerful vampire houses. Even if the Trust revoked my title of supernatural public enemy #1, we’d still spend every moment running or fighting, until one of us inevitably got the other killed. What would my vows even be like? Maybe marital bliss just wasn’t in the cards for me.
For the next few hours, I had the squirming sensation that I was being watched. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of anything. We finally slowed when we reached a ridge of rocks that blocked easy passage into the mountains. Sienna paused, smiling for the first time since we’d entered the underworld.
“Ah, here we go,” she said, stooping at the base of the largest. It took me a minute to realize the boulders had once been carved into large faces, which were now so eroded they were essentially featureless. She dug her fingers below the shifting sands, pulling out a buried box.
“You’re going to want this when we reach the Dessert of Obsidian Wind,” she said.
“The what?” Findlay echoed.
Sienna ignored him. She plucked a piece of cloth from the box and flung it at me. I caught it, almost without thinking. It closely resembled one of my mother’s cotton quilts. The fabric was tightly woven and at least two fingers thick.
“Put it on,” Sienna directed. “Trust me. You’ll want it. It’s the Aztec answer to Kevlar. It’s incredibly tough. There was a reason the conquistadors often fought in it. More flexible and lightweight than steel breastplates. And in the heat? That was invaluable.”
Stripping to my bra and shorts, I squirmed into the lightweight cotton armor. It fit my body like a warm glove, molding to my skin as if it was meant to be worn only by me. For a second, it was weird getting half naked with my former lover and mortal enemy, but after spending years on missions, there was little of each other we hadn’t already seen.
Sienna held up more garments for the others. Dom took a bundle, stripping off his shirt and pants
“No thanks, I’m good,” Ewan said, tapping his lion skin cloak with a grin.
Sienna bent and retrieved leather straps next, bending to fix them to my calves, just above my boots.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Full battle dress,” Sienna explained. “The straps are rudimentary shin guards. You’ll appreciate them when we get to the eighth desert.”
But she wasn’t through, even after fixing the leather straps in place. She handed me a round shield. It was covered in an assortment of colorful designs, none of which I recognized. Then she lifted what appeared to be half a mask, carved in orange clay. It depicted a jaguar’s mouth, open in a snarl, sharp teeth bared. Only the top half of the jaw and the eyes scowled out at me. Sienna fixed it into my hair, where it settled. I stood a little straighter, adjusting to the weight of it. Finally, she slid leather straps around my shoulders.
“For the shield,” she said. “You’ll get tired of carrying it.”
“Why does Valdez get the fancy gear?” Ewan griped, eyeing me with dislike.
“This is her place,” Sienna replied with a shrug. “Her people, her afterlife, and Mictlan recognizes her position as a warrior. You’re just standard souls to the lord who rules here. So quit complaining, Saunders.”
Dom was openly grinning at me, eyes sweeping from the crown of my head to my newly adorned calves. “You look hot, Nat. The jaguar warrior thing really suits you.”
I hefted my shield up a little higher, fighting the urge the blush beneath the scrutiny. Clad in armor, I felt a little like Wonder Woman. It was gratifying that Mictlan had singled me out. Ewan had already stolen valuable artifacts from a culture he knew little about. He’d already taken the lives of my distant relatives. If I’d been forced to watch him take anything more from my ancestors, donning the armor of an elite warrior, I probably would have hit him.
Dom, meanwhile, pulled on the garments Sienna had given him; besides the Aztec Kevlar, he sported a pair of jaguar-skin leggings, and an armored helmet erupting into a great plume of red feathers. Flowery bows were tied around his calves and wrists.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and even Findlay let out a giggle.
“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Dom asked, frowning.
“You look like a noble Aztec lord,” I said, brushing off his shoulders.
“Maybe 1500 years ago,” Ewan said, coughing into his hand.
“One more thing,” Sienna said, reaching into the near-empty box.
She handed Dom a wooden club, spiked with sharp obsidian teeth, and then gave me a short metal staff. I gave it a sharp wave and it extended into a spear wit
h a pointed tip, like a collapsible baton.
“Nice,” I said.
I stuffed my old clothes beneath the rock, arranging my holster around the armor. It barely fit over the bulk of my cotton armor, but I finally managed to arrange everything just so. There was no way I was leaving my guns behind. I strapped my shield and spear to my back and began to scale the steep incline before us.
“How do you know so much about this place?” Dom asked, when we’d climbed the first few levels of the mountain. “I thought you were Protestant?”
“All the afterlives are connected,” Sienna said simply. “Kind of like a shopping mall. Only boring people shop at the same outlet forever.”
When the path got steeper, I was grateful for the thick layer of leather that kept the rough rock face from skinning my shins. Scrabbling over the next ridge took about fifteen minutes. There were a dozen or so peaks in a row, stretching like sharp teeth, gnashing the path in two. When we cleared them, we found ourselves in the shadow of the mountain. My stomach twisted itself into anxious knots when I finally spotted what had been watching us from afar.
Many, many feet up the sheer rock face, an enormous serpent coiled around the nearest peak. Judging by the size of the rocks beneath it, it looked like it could swallow an elephant and still have room for dessert. I had the unpleasant image of it striking; its long and sinuous body flashing towards us.
“What the hell is that?” Ewan hissed.
“A guardian,” Sienna said with a wry smile. “It will judge if you are worthy to pass. For some, the journey ends here or a few miles beyond, where the lizard guardians also judge souls. You’ll see them roaming the mountainside.”
I was gratified to see Ewan gulp nervously, just once, before he could school his expression into something more neutral.
I ventured forward, some sixth sense tingling as I did so. Something wasn’t right here, though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The serpent cast a cool, dark shadow over us as we began our trek between the mountains.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing those with fleshy bits will need to watch out for,” Sienna said, examining her nails in a rather disinterested fashion. It was both a comfort and annoyance to me that death hadn’t stolen her naturally aloof demeanor.
“And what’s that?” Dom asked.
Not even a second later, the rocks at my feet began to scuttle like nervous bugs. The ground shifted beneath my feet, and only my improved reflexes kept me from impacting the ground hard.
“The mountains move,” Sienna finished, a note of amusement in her voice.
“You may want to run.”
chapter
12
I CRANED MY NECK AND had only seconds to register the metric tons of rock bearing down on our heads. A few seconds of warning before the world went completely to shit? Unfortunately for me, that was actually a pretty decent heads-up.
I pelted toward Dom, seizing him by the gun belt. It wasn’t going to be pretty or dignified, but I had to get him out of here before the mountain crushed him flat. Of the five of us, he was the only one who’d remain permanently dead if the rocks buried him. I didn’t really give a damn what happened to Ewan, and the worst that could happen to either shade was a scattering of their essence.
I lifted Dom bodily above my head, supporting most of his weight in a deadlift. It had been awhile since I’d relied on Valerius’ demonic strength, but with adrenaline flooding through me, Dom felt like an oversized pillow in my arms.
“Nat, don’t you dare—” Dom shouted. But that was as far as he got. I hurtled him with all my might toward a sunny gap between the shifting peaks.
I didn’t have time to see where he landed, but judging by the absence of screams, I thought I’d gotten him out of danger. The second most pressing problem facing me now was how did I escape this death trap? I rolled out of the way of a falling boulder and then leapt over two more, pushing off them quickly to scale the near vertical cliff. Scanning the dusky rock face, I searched for a person-sized divot I could duck into. There was no time to run after Dom. I’d be crushed flat if I tried to squeeze through the quickly narrowing gap between the peaks. Though I’d come back, I wasn’t eager to learn what it felt like to be steamrolled by a hundred tons of rock.
I found my answer about halfway up the rock face. Concealed within a jut of rock was an opening about seven feet wide and seven feet across, almost a perfect circle, as though the cave had been scooped from the rock with a melon baller. A silvery spirit ducked inside of it as I watched. I judged the distance, heart falling when I realized I was still too far away. I’m no mathematician, but I figured I would have to cross half a mile in a matter of seconds. It simply wasn’t possible.
“Hold on,” a familiar voice barked into my ear, and I was abruptly lifted off of my feet.
A wave of cold crashed over me, sending goosebumps rioting up my arms. It was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. Still, I wrapped my arms around Findlay’s spirit as he lifted me from the ground in a rare moment of compliant surrender. We went speeding across the distance as the shadow of the rock became thicker, the darkness was almost total. Even with my enhanced senses, I could barely see anything. I could only make out the outline of the cave entrance as we accelerated towards it.
The rock face settled with a great grinding crash over us, sealing us inside the cave like a child capturing a firefly. For a few moments, my eyes refused to adjust to the blackness. Then, slowly, my vision returned. I found two shades in the cave with me, each emitting a barely perceptible silver glow. Findlay was huddled on the ground shivering despite the fact that he was no longer in any danger of being crushed to death. Whatever kind of energy he’d expelled in saving me, it had clearly cost him. At first, I didn’t recognize the second ghost, the spirit of a much older man. But the more I studied him, the more I realized he looked vaguely familiar to me.
He was shorter than most of the men I knew, and a little stooped with age. But as he straightened out of his defensive crouch, I could see his limbs were as strong and sturdy as the roots of an old oak tree. He might have been handsome at one time, but the years had carved craggy lines into his face, time wearing down the planes of his body until he was less substantial than he had once been. His eyes were flat and dull, staring at nothing in particular. Some life seeped back into them when he got a good look at me. I gasped as recognition finally sank in.
“Madre de Dios,” I breathed. “Abuelo?”
The spirit blinked his dark eyes once, and then the wide, glittering smile I’d so loved as a child spread across his features. The gold-capped molars at the back didn’t wink at me as they had in life, too muted by the grayscale of his shade form. I was still overjoyed to see them.
Findlay’s brows scrunched together. “Do you two know each other?”
“This is my grandfather,” I explained, belatedly realizing whitebread Findlay probably didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. I turned back to my Abuelo, brows furrowed in puzzlement.
I’d known that my grandparents hadn’t seen eye to eye on religion in life. She’d been a staunch Catholic and raised my father the same way. I’d grown up trying to avoid going to mass and resenting the uniform I’d been forced to wear until I graduated high school. But I hadn’t worshiped the old gods like my grandfather, either.
It was a little depressing to realize that they’d ended up in separate afterlives.
“Natalia,” he greeted me warmly, throwing his arms open wide. He tried to walk toward me but only succeeded in dousing me in a wave of cold power once again. I rubbed vigorously at my arms. I was never going to get used to that. “You look a little pale. Are you feeling okay, mi nieta?”
I hesitated for a second. I didn’t want to get into the long story at the moment. I was sure my oxygen supply was limited in this small space, and there was no telling how long I’d be trapped here. Still, it seemed impolite not to acknowledge him.
“It’s good to see y
ou too, Abuelo. But what are you doing here? You’ve been gone for…” I did a quick calculation. “Fifteen years, come March. How haven’t you gotten to Mictlan yet?”
My grandfather shuffled in place, and some of the earlier apathy began to cloud his face again. “I was judged unworthy. I can’t pass on. And even if I did, there’s no one to do the sacrifices that I would need to actually enter the final resting place. I’ve been trying to find a way around, but I can’t seem to make it past the serpent.”
“I’ll help you,” I said at once, feeling shame and anger at the same time. I didn’t know what sacrifices he was talking about, but just because his family hadn’t performed some mystical voodoo shouldn’t mean he had to wither away in a desert cave by himself for all eternity. When I found the god of this Aztec underworld, we were going to have words. “Once we get out of here, I promise I’ll make the necessary sacrifices,” I said. I didn’t know precisely what had to be done, but I was sure I could find a scholar to explain it to me if Dom didn’t already know. “And as for the snake, we’ll deal with it when these mountains shift again.”
“When you get out of here…” My grandfather jerked once and then looked me over again, seeming to come to a realization. “You’re still alive.”
“Not quite,” I admitted with a wince. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say I’m undead, but not a vampire.”
Grandfather nodded, his expression concerned. But he didn’t press, for which I was grateful. “If you must go on to meet Mictlantecuhtli, you should leave me behind. I’m only going to impede your progress.”
“Not on your unlife,” I hissed. “I’m not leaving you here to rot. I just need to defeat that bastard Ewan first.”
He cocked his head to the side once in interest. “Who is Ewan?”
I took a deep breath and briefly explained why we were in Mictlan in the first place, silently hoping that I didn’t die of suffocation, trapped in a cave with two ghosts. Once I really got rolling, it felt impossible to stop. It was almost like I was six again, sitting on his lap and gushing about my childhood adventures. Doubt crept into my voice when I told him about Ewan’s theft from the vault, and the very real fear that I would lose the battle once we faced off in front of Mictlantecuhtli.
Agent of Magic Box Set Page 52
