“I want this one,” she said, dropping the sword with a clang.
“Really?” Dante asked, wrinkling his nose.
“Really.”
“It looks a little…dull. We can get that sharpened up for you after practice,” Marisa said, her own long, graceful knife hanging at her hip, its surface swirling like an oil slick on the river. “Honestly, I’m not even sure where it came from….”
She fell silent at a fierce look from Pao, who felt weirdly protective of the ugly little dagger.
“But I’m sure it’ll be great!” Marisa added hastily. “Come on in, please, both of you.”
Pao held her chin high, leaving Señora Mata’s crocheted bag behind as she hopped into the pit. Dante dropped down beside her.
“Now, hold your weapons out in front of you.”
Pao turned her attention to the knife, which fit perfectly in her grip. The tape was a little warm, like someone had just set it down. It was comforting in an odd, potentially germy kind of way.
Dante pulled out the chancla. The slipper was still folded from being in his pocket all night, and Pao tried not to laugh at its less-than-impressive appearance as he stood there in front of the three armed girls.
“Go ahead,” said Naomi, watching him with shrewd eyes.
“Go ahead and what?” he asked, though it was pretty obvious what she wanted.
“Transform it.”
“Right,” Dante said, shifting a little back and forth, which Pao knew was a sign of nervousness. Her mean-spirited inner monologue went silent at once.
First he tightened his grip on it.
Then he took a deep breath, and kind of…squinted at it.
Nothing happened.
“It’s okay,” Pao said under her breath. “Just try to remember what it felt like before.”
“I know,” he snapped without looking at her, and Pao bristled. She was only trying to help. Boys were so sensitive.
Every muscle in Dante’s body was tense. He was focusing so hard, he was starting to sweat at his hairline. But the slipper didn’t grow fuzzy bunny ears, much less transform into a fearsome soul weapon.
“It’s a state of mind,” Marisa said, stepping closer, drawing her own knife in one fluid motion, like she’d done it a thousand times. Pao hadn’t noticed before, but it had the same shimmer as Dante’s club.
“Is that…?” Pao asked before she could stop herself.
“It was Franco’s,” Marisa said simply.
His Arma del Alma. Pao had about three thousand questions for her. (Did it have a common form? How many of them were in the world? How had she gotten it from Franco? Was it as powerful as Dante’s, or were they all different?) But Marisa’s eyes were a little sad, so with considerable effort, Pao kept her queries to herself.
For now.
“What was happening when it changed before?” Naomi was asking Dante, joining Marisa at his side.
“That stupid Mano was about to kill us,” Dante said, his face flushed now. “It just…happened.”
After I came up with the idea to use it, Pao thought. Her snark was alive and well, but she didn’t let it escape through her mouth.
“You were in danger,” Marisa said, walking around him like a jungle cat stalking its prey. “You wanted to protect yourself, and your friend—”
At the last second, just when it seemed like she would lunge for Dante, Marisa changed direction and leaped toward Pao instead, her knife extended.
Pao’s reflexes weren’t bad—she’d always done okay in gym class and stuff—but nothing had prepared her for a sneak knife attack. She didn’t even have time to step out of the way, let alone lift her dagger to ward off Marisa’s blade.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to. A wave of energy from behind her caught Marisa midstride, causing her to stumble and overcorrect, then sent her straight past Pao and into a neighboring cactus.
With her out of the way, Pao had a clear view of Dante, who was looking triumphantly at the fully transformed, shining club in his hand.
“I figured as much,” said Marisa, picking a cactus spine out of her palm. “You savior types are all alike. It’s never about self-preservation.”
Dante suddenly seemed very interested in the toe of his left shoe—or basically anything that wasn’t Pao’s face.
Inside her, a storm of conflicting feelings swirled around—which was one of her least favorite things in the world. On the one hand, she was a little offended that Dante thought she needed to be protected. On the other, it was kind of nice that he had wanted to…wasn’t it? Was she a bad feminist for thinking that?
Being best friends with a boy was so confusing sometimes.
Especially when the boy had nice hair and a magical weapon and kept holding your hand at key moments.
“We’re not going to be able to threaten her life every time you need to draw your weapon,” Marisa said, breaking the awkward silence between them. “So I suggest you figure out how to do it on your own.”
“Got it,” Dante said. He still wouldn’t look at Pao.
“Okay, moving on,” said Naomi, stepping forward. “You got lucky with that club during the fight against the Mano Pachona, but it won’t help you with some of the other things the rift spits out. You’ll need combat skills.”
Pao tried to listen, but it was hard when she was too busy wondering what Naomi meant by “other things”…and whether Ondina’s voice would save Pao from those, too. And if anyone would notice. And—
“The most important thing is to protect your face,” Naomi said, interrupting Pao’s thoughts. “Their number one priority will be to pull you toward the rift, but if they can’t, they will go for your soul-stuff. Your life force. They attack the mouth, the eyes, the ears. So that’s where you need to focus.”
Dante raised his club higher, obscuring his face completely.
Naomi jabbed him in the stomach with the butt of her spear.
He doubled over, wheezing, and Pao didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or punch Naomi. She settled on neither.
“That doesn’t mean you can neglect the rest of your body,” Naomi said, as if nothing had happened. Dante straightened up, wincing. “These things are monstrous, but they’re not dumb. If they can’t get to your face, they’ll do whatever they can to bring you to the ground.”
Pao remembered how helpless she’d felt when Dante was being dragged away, and her sense of panic when that hairy demon hand was choking the life out of her. The worst part of it was thinking that she had failed Emma….
While she was recalling all this, Pao held her dagger loosely at her side. Naomi took advantage of her distraction and lunged at her without warning. But somehow, Pao was ready.
The fat little knife deflected Naomi’s spear before it could reach Pao’s face.
“Good,” Naomi said, a little begrudgingly.
For the next half hour, Pao and Dante practiced repelling attacks—usually to the face and neck, but sometimes Naomi and Marisa switched tactics and went for the ankles, too. Pao tried to let go of her anticipation and keep all possibilities open.
She stopped more attacks than Dante did by a pretty wide margin, and soon Pao started to see telltale signs that it was bothering him. It was like they were back in his room playing a video game instead of training for combat in a mystical cactus field. His actions became erratic, and he paid more attention to her movements than his own.
Pao deflected another blow.
Dante took a second hit to the ribs.
We don’t let people win out of pity, she reminded herself, and the next time Naomi left an opening, Pao charged into it, taking the older girl by surprise.
“Nice work!” she said once she had Pao on her heels again. “That’s a good segue into offense. Let’s huddle up.”
Pao waited for Dante, who was engaged with Marisa on the other side of the pit. When they were done, he walked past her without a word.
Pao rolled her eyes. He didn’t see, but Marisa did, and she
raised an amused eyebrow.
“Okay,” said Naomi, clearly in her element now, a few white curls straying from the knot on top of her head, her eyes blazing. “During the third quarter, offense is tough, because you never know what the rift is gonna spit out. Obviously you guys have seen the chupacabras and the Manos Pachonas, but that’s not everything you’ll have to face by a long shot.”
In her mind’s eye, Pao saw a parade of red-eyed rift creatures swarming them, wings and scales and talons and manes. She looked at the little knife and fought the urge to scream or run away.
“Now that we’re so close to the solstice, things are getting dire. Whoever’s in charge in there always sends the worst at us just before the rift closes, and since the solstice makes the veil even thinner, it means they can send the worst of the worst.”
Marisa and Naomi exchanged a glance, and Pao wondered if they were thinking of Franco. Of the night the rift monsters had drained him of his life force and dragged him inside to die.
“What are they?” Dante said. “Giant lizards? Massive birds or something?” He choked up on his club, as if to prove he was ready.
Marisa shook her head. “The ahogados will be next,” she said.
“What exactly—” Dante began.
Naomi, her eyes full of hate, didn’t let him finish. “They’re the corrupted souls of the kids who were taken. The ones who couldn’t escape. And if you think you’re ready for them, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Pao felt her stomach turn over. She pictured the kids from her English class, only venom-eyed and soulless. How was she supposed to kill them? They were just kids….
For a moment, she was back on the black riverbank of her dream, her white hair hanging around her face, her own glowing green eyes searching for targets. But then, worse even than that, she saw Emma, her skin pale and translucent, her sparkly purple nails reaching for Pao’s throat.
No. She’s not dead. She hasn’t been corrupted, Pao told herself. In her dream, Emma had still been corporeal, her voice still human. She’s alive, and I’m going to save her.
But as Naomi got them into fighting formation, Ondina’s taunting words came back to her unbidden. Did she tell you that the solstice is your only chance to get through the rift?
Suddenly, Pao was distracted, antsy. Her bargain to help the Niños seemed reckless when she was faced with the prospect of Emma’s blue eyes turning green forever. She couldn’t stand the idea of Emma’s love for comics and Kit Kat bars and those springy shoelaces you don’t have to tie being replaced by a horrible mindless hunger….
But Pao couldn’t get into the rift alone. This was still the best way forward.
Wasn’t it?
Marisa got into a defensive stance, her water blade extended. Pao tried to listen to her instructions: Stay out of range so their arms can’t get around you. Attack the mouths and hands before you’re sucked dry or dragged off.
But her heart wasn’t in it anymore. All she could think about was Emma, and Ondina’s words. Pao was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get inside the rift. Or worse, that there was something corrupted within her. That somehow the rift would find a way to use it to hurt her friends.
Dante was better on offense than he was on defense—he and Naomi were locked in battle a few yards away. Pao could tell Marisa was about to give her a talking-to about her lack of enthusiasm, but the sound of a horn echoing in the distance stopped them all.
“What does that mean?” Pao asked, alarmed by the way Naomi gave up the fight against Dante and headed straight for Marisa. It had to be something bad if Naomi was walking away from probable victory.
“It means we’re under attack,” she said when she reached them, taking her place at Marisa’s right side.
“In the middle of the day?” Dante asked. “I thought you said they only came at night!”
“The first rule of monster-fighting is that there are no rules,” Marisa said. “Especially not on the solstice.” She looked at Naomi. “Sounds like the east quadrant.”
“Do we all go?”
Marisa shook her head. “We’d be leaving the camp unprotected.”
Naomi nodded, her eyes dark and serious, her white hair proof of all her previous battles. Of everything she had lost. “I’ll get a team together and go,” she said. “You stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dante said, and Naomi nodded.
Pao wanted to strangle him for his stupid machismo. Instead, she said, “If he’s going, I’m going.”
But Naomi shook her head. “You stay here,” she said, already turning away.
Pao saw red. “Excuse me,” she said, “but I don’t take orders from you. If he’s going, I’m going.” She felt her eyes narrow, her features twisting into what her mom called her This means trouble expression.
Naomi’s face softened, and she stepped closer to Pao. “We need his club,” she said. “But if you’re there, he’ll be distracted. It could be dangerous for both of you.”
Pao had never felt more useless. “I’ll keep out of his sight line,” she said. “I’ll…”
But there was no leniency in Naomi’s eyes. “Stay with Marisa,” she said. “Protect the camp. I’ll make sure he comes back in one piece.”
It took everything in Pao not to go on a rant about how girls shouldn’t have to be responsible for boys’ inability to control their stupid savior complexes. But this was life and death, and she had more to worry about than Dante’s scattered focus.
White-haired, green-eyed, rage-filled Pao stared back at her from the dream world.
“Okay,” Pao said quietly, before stomping across the ring to where Dante was practice-swinging his club. “If you get hurt, I will kill you.” She shoved him squarely in the chest.
He stumbled a few steps, then crossed the distance back to her in one.
Instead of shoving her like she expected him to, he looked at her uncertainly and then swooped in and kissed her on the cheek.
For possibly the first time in her life, Pao was stunned into silence.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Stay safe.”
He followed Naomi out of the ring before Pao could do more than gape like one of the Gila River’s three-headed fish.
After Dante and Naomi left, things happened quickly.
Marisa told Pao to keep close, then proceeded to move at lightning speed through the camp, providing instructions to those staying and words of encouragement to those in the group heading to the east quadrant.
Weapons were drawn and cleaned, and the bonfire was stoked until the flames seemed to lick the sky.
“If we’re lucky, the ahogados won’t make it this far,” Marisa said, probably in reaction to the panic on Pao’s face. “And your friend will be fine.” She put a hand on Pao’s shoulder.
Pao didn’t shrug it off, but she took little comfort from it. Having to fight wasn’t what she was worried about. She knew Dante. He wanted to be a hero, and now that he had found a purpose in this bizarre setting, he wouldn’t quit in the face of danger. No matter what it meant for his own safety, he would fight to protect them all.
What he didn’t seem to care about was that Pao would never be the same if something happened to him.
The horn blew again—two short blasts this time. Pao looked to Marisa, whose mouth was set in a grim line. “What does that mean?”
“It means they’re heading for the boundary.”
Pao’s stomach sank even further. The ahogados weren’t coming for them—they were going toward Silver Springs instead. Toward Dante’s abuela, and Pao’s mom, and every other unsuspecting person taking a walk, or reading a newspaper, or commuting to work.
“There’s nothing we can do for now,” said Marisa. “We just have to wait and hope that Naomi and the rest of them can defeat the forces or redirect them here. Our job is to protect the camp. If it falls…”
But she didn’t have to finish. Pao understood. The camp was the last defense against the corrupted rift. If the Niños
were scattered, or worse, there would be nothing to protect Silver Springs, or anything beyond it.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Pao asked, trying not to let her voice waver.
“Naomi is the best fighter I’ve ever seen,” Marisa said, not really answering the question.
The last of the Niños who were headed to the battlefront left a few minutes later. Marisa nodded at each of them in turn, touching their hands or shoulders, imparting strength. Pao stood beside her like a statue, trying not to think of Ondina’s voice, or Dante out there, risking his life without protection, or that kiss….
She tried, but she didn’t succeed.
There were only five of them left at camp—Marisa, Pao, Sal, and two other kids she didn’t know. Twins, a boy and a girl, probably eleven or so. It wasn’t a very impressive line of defense if the worst happened and the camp was overrun by ahogados. Still, Pao thought it would be better if the enemy came to them. At least the Niños knew what to expect. The residents of Silver Springs would be helpless.
Time dragged like at the end of a math test when you’re done and everyone else is still working. Only this was much worse, because people were in danger. People like Dante. No one seemed to have anything to say. They all stood with their backs to the fire, facing east, squinting into the distance in case figures appeared in the haze.
Pao tried to recall all the drowning victims she had heard of over the years. Relatives and friends had mourned them, of course, but the Gila River was known to be dangerous, and people had come to accept the tragic accidents as part of living alongside it.
But would the casualties of its icy depths appear here today? White-haired and green-eyed and ready to drag other kids to their watery fates?
Would Emma be among them?
Who was responsible for setting all this in motion? Pao was used to having Franco’s pixelated face on her mental dartboard, but now the target just had a big question mark in the middle. It couldn’t be an ahogado—they were supposed to be terrifying but not intelligent. And obviously a severed hand wasn’t leading the charge, nor was a slavering demon dog.
Paola Santiago and the River of Tears Page 17
