“Damn straight! And Jorge getting twenty stitches in his leg.” He was pissed enough to shake me out of my pique. “You could have been killed. I feel responsible for you girls.”
“Us ‘girls’?” Lisa asked, in a warning tone.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I feel responsible for all of these guys, but you two are like guests. Not to mention a couple of tenderfoots.”
There was enough irony in the word tenderfoot that I didn't take offense. I knew what he didn't—that we were more used to life-and-death situations than we appeared.
“Zeke,” I began tentatively, because the middle of the night in a hospital waiting room didn't seem like the perfect place to reveal the full scope of our freakitude. “You're assuming we're a couple of normal college girls.”
His brows twisted with tired humor. “Obviously not. What kind of normal college girl goes on a stakeout for the National Enquirer?” He dug his keys out of his pocket. “Anyway. It's done. Let's get back to Dulcina. If I never hear the word chupacabra again, it'll be too soon.”
I didn't move. “It's not done, Zeke. The chup— The thing isn't dead.”
He frowned. “What do you mean? Dave told me you shot it. He saw the blast hit it.”
“What time did Jorge get attacked?” Dreams and gut feelings weren't going to convince Zeke. I had to come up with something concrete.
He checked his cell phone call log. “Around one.”
“Dave and I were attacked about twelve-thirty. So it had to be alive afterward.”
Still scowling, he looked from me to Lisa and back again. “How is it possible that you shot the animal full of buckshot, and half an hour later it's tearing up someone else?”
I was ready to tell him everything, even if he left us stranded here at the hospital, maybe in the psych ward. But Lisa spoke up first. “Did you ever read any Sherlock Holmes?”
His brow knit in confusion. “No. But I've seen the movies.”
“Holmes always says, whenever you eliminate all the possible explanations, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.” Lisa unfolded her arms, her body language unbending. “Jorge and Dave both said it was impossible that they were attacked by a cougar, a wolf, or any animal they'd ever seen before. If those things are impossible, then it must be something else.”
Zeke processed that for a moment, then rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Okay. Tomorrow we'll round up the cattle, and post guards all around the corrals.”
“And you should talk to Doña Isabel,” I said. “She's been here so long, she may know—”
“No.” He cut me off. “I'll listen to you on this, Maggie. But I'm not going to my grandmother with a crazy story about an unkillable monster.”
“Don't you think—”
“No.” There was no arguing with him. Everything—his tone, his expression, his posture—said that to continue would be like hammering against a wall.
Instead, I capitulated. In the morning, I'd simply figure out how to work around him.
17
Zeke drove us back to the Artesian Manor, more or less in silence. I didn't want to push my luck by discussing the real nature of the chupacabra; I was happy he was listening to me about it not being dead. Small victories.
Backpack over my shoulder, I hauled myself up the concrete steps while Lisa and Zeke said good night. I was amassing an impressive category of aches: saddle-sore butt, wrenched ankle, and the familiar pain in the overstressed scars of my wrist. My heart was hurting a little, too. There was still no word from Justin and I was starting to worry. He wouldn't have said he'd help, then leave me hanging. Romance aside, he was just too responsible for that.
I shed Hector's denim shirt and hung it on the back of the desk chair. As I did, the collar flipped up, and I was startled to see embroidery on the underside, where it wouldn't be noticed. What was the point of that?
Lisa came in and locked the door, and I called her over. “What does this look like to you?”
She peered over my shoulder at the stitching on the underside of the collar. “Is that the Velasquez brand?”
“That's what I wondered.” I'd thought that about the medallion in the museum, too. There was a similarity in shape, though this one was much more like the double-armed cross than the lacy outlines on the artifact.
“Where'd you get this?”
“From Hector. He's the guy who works the bar when Teresa's not there.” I traced the thread with my finger, feeling a slight echo of the energy from the charm bags we'd found that morning. Had it only been that morning?
“Can a bruja be a man?” I asked.
Lisa made a doubtful face. “They're supposed to be women. It's a kind of balance for the male-dominated Church.”
Maybe Hector was married. I didn't remember him wearing a wedding ring, but that didn't mean he wasn't.
I was too tired to try to find out in the middle of the night, so I dropped the shirt back over the chair. “There's nothing else we can do tonight. I'm going to take a shower.”
Lisa sat on her bed with a groan. “Please do.”
She didn't have to be specific. The smell of blood and sweat was going to haunt my dreams. Grabbing clean undies and a sleep shirt from my suitcase, I headed for the bathroom, then paused in the doorway. “We're going to have to talk about the chupacabra, Lisa.”
She cracked open an eyelid and looked at me. “I know that the giant squid theory is out.”
“By a mile.”
“It was a nice hope while it lasted.” She rose and fished her own pj's out of the dresser drawer. “Go shower. That cloud of mosquito repellant is making my eyes water.”
After all her denial, she accepted the news more calmly than I'd thought she would. Figured. Lisa never did the expected.
When I came out of the bathroom, scrubbed and blissfully clean, I knew immediately that Lisa had been busy. There was something in the air, the feel of something otherworldly at work.
Before this trip, when I'd encountered a magic spell in progress—which was a wild phrase to have to incorporate into my vocabulary—it had been the psychic equivalent of an electrical storm, raging and crackling, and very hard to miss. What I felt here was more like the static charge on a dry winter day.
“What are you up to?” I asked, almost too tired to care.
She had a towel spread on her bed, where she seemed to be putting together another charm bag, like the ones we'd found that morning. One of those was lying on the night-stand, unwrapped from the silk scarf.
Lisa picked up a sachet in each hand. “It's red pill or blue pill time.” She held up the sleep-good charm. “This one you said was influencing your dreaming, maybe protecting you from seeing the bad stuff.”
“That's my theory.” I pointed to the new bag, made of unbleached cotton. “What's that one?”
She offered it on her other palm. “If you really want to get a look at what's prowling around down here, it will-theoretically—make your dreams more clear and insightful.”
I squinted at the bundle, then at her face. “You just whipped this up?”
“More or less.”
“What happened to ingredients and preparation and energy source and a partridge in a pear tree?”
She exhaled impatiently, ticking off on her fingers: “Symbolic or practical materials, focus of intent, and power source. That's for serious sorcery. But this kind of charm bag is just … Ye Olde New Age Gift Shoppe stuff. It enhances a tendency. You already have psychic dreams, so it doesn't have to work very hard. The spark, in this case, is your ability.”
I took it from her and felt a slight, nonthreatening tingle. “What's in it?”
“Among other things, the sheddings I got at the two-headed snake place.”
Eew. As if that wasn't bad enough, I had to ask, “Among what other things? Anything that would make me fail a random drug test?”
“You don't smoke it, you moron. Just put it under your pillow.” She shrugged, as if my deci
sion didn't matter. “At worst, it doesn't do anything.”
“Modesty doesn't really suit you, Lisa.” If she made it, it would work. But if it gave me some answers …
The bag was a little crunchy and had a musty smell. That would be really nice under my pillow. “What's this about, Lisa? Why the turnaround?”
“Fine. Don't trust me.” She folded up the remnants of the ingredients into the towel and carried it to the bathroom. “I don't care if you use it or not.”
Of course she did. It was an act of trust. She'd made it as a sign she was on board, no matter what I discovered. By accepting it, I accepted her peace offering.
Lisa should come with an instruction manual.
I put the sachet on the mattress and covered it with two pillows, then climbed into the marshmallow of a bed. The last thing I did was carefully place my phone on the night-stand, but not before checking one more time for a message.
I fell into the dream almost eagerly, with the anticipation of learning something important. I'd settle for any glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel of ignorance. Finding myself back in the desert, the same place I'd been all day and all night, was a major disappointment.
Mesquite and sage bushes, endless rise and fall of the dunes. I sighed. “Same song, forty-second verse.”
“Are you sure?” I heard the clop of horse hooves on dry ground, and turned to see Doña Isabel—as young and strong as she looked in her portrait—leading her mare. She was still taller than me, more so even than in real life. I wondered if that was her projection or my perception.
“What happened to the fence?” I asked.
Her face was sculpted in haughty, smooth perfection. “You're inside now. Isn't that what you wanted?”
I took the question as rhetorical. “So the fence really is your doing?”
She set her mouth impatiently. “I have told you. This land is under my protection. Why are you still seeking in your dreams?”
“There's something here, Doña Isabel,” I said, urgent but respectful. “I don't know why I can see it and you can't, but you have to believe me.”
“Bah.” She tossed her head, a girlish gesture that made me forget I was really dealing with an old woman. “I do not have to do anything, chica. I've been guarding this land since before even your parents were born.”
A cool breeze touched my cheek. The horse stomped a hoof and shook her bridle as shadows crawled across the ground like in fast-motion photography. Gray clouds rolled over the sky and then settled onto the coastal plain in a damp mist that eddied through the dunes.
Doña Isabel dropped her gaze from the sky and moved to mount her horse. “Go home, Magdalena. You don't belong here.”
She pulled the mare's head around, and the horse sprang forward at the touch of her booted heels. They disappeared into a swirl of fog and I hurried after. I slid down a sandy slope, into a gully between dunes, where I hit a dark patch of soil and stumbled, unable to move.
My bare foot had sunk into what looked like a tacky puddle of tar. I tried to pull free, but the ground sucked at my leg like a thirsty mouth.
“Doña Isabel?” I called into the mist. “Are you there?”
No answer. I managed to free part of my foot before it was drawn back down with a wet, hungry sound. Something vile and viscous oozed out from the earth around my ankle, dark as old blood.
A fat raindrop splattered onto my cheek. It seemed warm in contrast to the enveloping fog. I touched the spot, and my fingers came away slick and red.
Gross.
Another drop fell into my outstretched palm. There was a rumble of thunder, and the red rain began to fall in earnest. It soaked my clothes and matted my hair, running down to sting my eyes and seep between my lips.
The dry earth drank the rain down greedily, softening into mud, and I pulled against it with all my strength. My calf slid out, then my ankle, but what came with it this time was no longer an amorphous ooze. A distinct claw, five razor-tipped digits, wrapped around my ankle like a vise. With every drop of blood that struck it, the leathery dark skin seemed harder, and more distinctly real. Something else emerged, too—a domed head and bony brow. Huge red eyes blinked away the tarry sludge and the creature's mouth gaped wide, lined with silver white teeth.
I screamed as it pulled itself out, its claws flexing on my ankle as it licked the thick crimson stain off my skin. Logic said to wake up, but was overpowered by the part of me that shrieked and flailed against the grip of the nightmare.
A kick of my free foot caught the creature in the eye. With a hellish cry it reared back, shark teeth coated with blood. Could it kill me in my dream? If it did would I simply never wake up? I kicked it again and there was a sound like splintering wood.
That didn't make any sense. Neither did the smash of glass, or the yelling that wasn't coming from me, or the way the light snapped on like someone had thrown a switch.
Suddenly I was sitting up in my bed at the Artesian Manor, disoriented as hell, my throat aching from the scream that still rang in my ears. I wasn't about to be eaten, but I couldn't figure out why a bar fight had broken out in my room.
The motel door stood wide open, and a familiar-looking casualty staggered amid the wreckage of an ugly ceramic lamp. Lisa grappled with another guy—a complete stranger, big enough to make my tall friend look like a petite flower— and she seemed to be winning.
Pepper spray. I had some somewhere. I scrabbled in the nightstand drawer, hoping I'd been smart enough to keep it handy.
“Stop! Hey, Lisa. It's us.” That memorable baritone voice cut through my panic and confusion.
I twisted around, caught in the sheets, and saw that half of “us” was indeed my boyfriend, who was supposed to be half a country away. He had one hand propped against the wall near the light switch, and the other held his head as if he was afraid it might come off.
“Justin?” I gaped. “What are you doing here? And who is … Hey!” His companion had ducked Lisa's fist, then grabbed it to keep her from swinging again. “Don't hurt her!”
“Hurt her?” The guy spared me a glance, and it was his downfall. Lisa's left hand popped him in the nose. I winced in sympathy as his head snapped back and hit the open door.
“Jeez, Lisa.” I managed to get myself untangled from the covers. “Is it two-for-one concussion night?”
She stood back, fists still at the ready, the cord of her earphones hanging around her neck. “What?” she said, not at all defensively.
The stranger held his nose, blood dripping through his fingers. “I think you broke it.”
“Please,” she scoffed. “If I did, you would know it.”
I whirled toward Justin, but the door caught my attention first. “Oh my God! You broke down the door.”
“It really wasn't that hard.” He gingerly felt the top of his head. “Unlike the lamp Lisa hit me with.”
“You broke the door.”
Now he got my point, and looked abashed. “We knocked, but there was no answer. Not until the screaming started, anyway.”
“Nightmare,” I said succinctly, because I heard footsteps on the landing. It was a good thing the threat wasn't real, or Lisa and I would have been murdered in our beds and our skins made into a suit by now.
The barrel of a shotgun appeared first, then Teresa, swathed in a rumpled housedress. “What the hell is going on here?” She took us all in with a ferocious glance, gesturing with the gun. “Who are these boys? I thought el chupacabra had come to steal you girls away, and now I find you having some kind of orgy?”
“There's nothing going on, Teresa.” I raised my hands in the universal gesture for “don't shoot me.” The corner of my eye caught Justin's friend—it couldn't be anyone other than Henry—climbing to his feet without any help from Lisa.
“Then why aren't you wearing any pants?”
I dropped my arms and tugged down the hem of my Battlestar Galáctica T-shirt. “It's a funny story, really.”
Justin stepped up an
d did his thing. His trustworthy Boy Scout aura was so genuine, it was like a superpower. “It's my fault. We got here late because we took the wrong road out of San Antonio. When no one answered our knock, I worried. Especially after Maggie told me about el chupacabra.”
Teresa's eyes narrowed, but she stopped making conversational gestures with the shotgun. Then she saw the damage to the room. “What happened to my door? And the lamp! Who's going to pay for that?”
“We will,” I assured her. “You see, after everything that happened tonight, I had a nightmare, and when I screamed …”
“… I got a little overenthusiastic with the heroism,” Justin finished. It was the right tack to strike with her—brave men, rescuing the little ladies—even if Henry's bloody nose didn't support the image very well.
Teresa sighed, and moved the gun to the crook of her arm. “Well, you girls can't stay here. Meet me in the office and I'll give you a new room. Two new rooms,” she added, with a warning look at the guys.
When she left, I turned to Justin, raising a cynical brow. “I'm glad you're on our side.”
“Come on.” Lisa's tone was an audible eye roll. “I can't believe you're letting these two sexists off that easy.” She pointed at Justin. “Forget property damage, assault, and scaring the crap out of me. Sir Galahad came here to rescue you. He thinks you're a damsel in distress.”
“Don't be stupid.” Justin didn't waste any charm on Lisa. They knew each other too well.
I finally looked at him properly, without yelling and punching and armed innkeepers to distract me. His short brown hair was unkempt; his jeans and T-shirt were rumpled and creased. There were shadows under his eyes and a trace of stubble on his chin. It was almost dawn, so it didn't take a genius to figure out there'd been all-night travel involved in his getting there.
Which made him the most awesome boyfriend in the world.
“There's a difference between ‘help’ and ‘rescue,’ ” he told Lisa, proving my point. So what if he sounded a bit defensive. I was willing to excuse a little crankiness.
Highway to Hell Page 14
