The Dead Pools lay at the bottom of a horseshoe canyon only accessible by a tiny switchback trail that cantered down the eastern wall. We knew it would be guarded. If you’re a black hat doing your thing, whipping up a soul-killing powder while prancing about in a people-suit, you don’t leave the backdoor unlocked and open. You’ve got possessed corpse soldiers and narco killers at your disposal. You’re going to set them on that trail.
Had we brought rappelling gear we might have tried a different route, but it was impossible in the dark. The angle was too steep, the ground too broken. It would take hours to pick our way down and time was rapidly running out.
We pressed into the dead zone instead and I immediately knew it was the wrong thing to do. Behind us the jungle had sheltered us, removing obstacles and soothing the beasts, but it had no influence inside this twisted land.
I called it dead because that’s how it felt, but it wasn’t. It was sickeningly alive. The air was ripe with the stench of rotting fruit while insects swarmed over the bloated bodies of the few animals too sick or broken to flee. At every step the dead zone fought against us.
Scabrous trees dripping with slime bent their branches to block our progress. Diseased creatures hissed from inside stagnant pools. Whatever time we’d gained sailing through the jungle we lost as we double-backed and slipped around fresh horrors.
“I thought we’d already walked through Hell,” Ramirez whispered and I could only nod in agreement. The blighted landscape was shockingly similar, as if the perverted magicks the Aqua Negra employed brought a portion of the infernal regions home.
Again and again we found our progress blocked and we were forced to backtrack and try another route. I didn’t like it. It felt like we were being funneled down a chute to the slaughter, but what other choice did we have?
The others felt it too. Stevens rode point, with Ramirez right behind. Both kept their guns pointed out, sweeping right and left as they stepped over jagged rocks and creeping vines ready to snag a foot or twist an ankle. Mac was right behind, keeping a hush at the ready. The last thing we needed was a shot pinpointing our location. Nunez and I kept to the rear straining our ears for any sounds of pursuit.
A few minutes later I realized that Nunez had fallen behind. Maybe the stimlyx was old and had lost its potency. Maybe the pounding Nunez put on his ankle was too much. It’s hard to know, but the one thing I couldn’t do was leave him behind. I stopped and jogged back to where he leaned up against a boulder that thrust up from the dark loam.
He tried to wave me on, telling me that he’d catch up, but I wasn’t buying it. Nunez was one of the toughest guys I know and I’m surrounded by guys that regularly push through their pain. If Nunez had stopped, things were bad.
Over his protests I unlaced his boot and found his ankle swollen like a baseball. Shit, he wasn’t going anywhere, not fast at least. I laced it back up as tight as I could. There wasn’t any wood around that I’d trust for a splint. Whatever crap was growing on it couldn’t be good.
Five minutes passed. Mac should have noticed that we’d disappeared by now. I should be able to hear him grumbling as he backtracked along the trail, but the zone was unnaturally quiet. I didn’t like it. Predators go silent just before the kill.
“Come on,” I said. “Lean on me and keep your weight off your foot. Don’t worry about what I told you earlier. Chew the fuck out of that root.”
“I lost it about an hour ago,” he replied. “Dropped it back there somewhere and couldn’t stop to find it.”
That explained a lot. Once the narcotic left his system his pain would rebound. In a couple more hours he’d be lucky if he could move. “Shit happens,” I said as I pulled him to his feet and threw my arm around him.
We moved off slowly, hobbling along like we were running a three-legged race, but we couldn’t keep it up for long. The height difference was too great and Nunez couldn’t match my stride. After a few aborted attempts we threw down our packs and I told Nunez to climb onto my back.
By now I was really worried about Mac. There was no way that he hadn’t noticed we were gone. He wouldn’t have left us on our own either. Something or someone had kept him from coming back.
I kept my worries to myself as Nunez climbed aboard. Once I had the weight distributed it wasn’t so bad. Nunez didn’t weigh more than a buck forty, but I had serious doubts about getting him down the canyon trail. We’d have some hard decisions to make once we reached that point.
We found Mac around the next bend or at least we heard him. In the ten, fifteen minutes we’d been delayed a wall of thorns had grown across the path. It might have started out as a bougainvillea, but dark magicks had twisted it far from its colorful origin. Black and yellow flowers wept snot colored treacle and sported thorns longer than my thumb. We weren’t getting through that, not without a flamethrower and machete.
Mac’s relief was short lived once he heard us on the other side. “What the hell happened to the two of you?”
“Long story,” I said. “Nunez’s ankle gave out and I’m carrying him now.”
“Well you’re not coming through here,” Mac observed. I bit down on a Ramirez-like reply. Now wasn’t the time.
“We’re about a hundred yards ahead of you in a clearing above the switchback. We can’t see much in the dark, but it looks like there’s a thin patch of bare earth running along the canyon’s edge. See if you can find a way over to it and cross over there.”
Whatever else Mac had planned to say was drowned out by the drums. The echoing thunder rolled through the canyon, signaling the start of the ritual below. We had an hour I guessed; maybe two at the most before de Oras raised enough energy to power the show.
Nunez tapped my shoulder and pointed to a thin opening between two gnarled trees. It was better than nothing I supposed. Our time had run out and I didn’t waste any more of it trying to let Mac know we were on our way.
I moved as quickly as I could towards the trees, but the forest must have sensed our plan. It sent streamers racing across the ground to try and tangle my feet, noose-like vines dropped from above. Within seconds we were both thrashing and clawing our way through the undergrowth.
I lost sense of where we were and how far we’d traveled. My world focused down to keeping my feet moving while Nunez rode me like a horse. He’d slap a shoulder and I’d move left or right, clench his knees against my sides as he leaned out to hack at a grasping branch or bat aside a strangling noose.
I was so focused on moving my feet that I nearly killed us both. Just as we broke through a saw-toothed hedge Nunez pulled me so hard to the right that I stumbled and we both went down. Something whistled above my head and Nunez flew off behind me while I was thrown forward. I skidded to a stop at the edge of the cliff, fingertips grasping at the empty air.
Beneath me the canyon split the ground into a bloody maw. Bonfires threw back a hellish light while little ant-sized people moved through a primitive dance. I scrambled backwards on my hands and knees, not trusting my ability to stand. So close, so fucking close, if I’d fallen a second later . . . I didn’t want to finish the thought.
“Thorn, look out!”
I looked up in time to see the Santa Muerte take another swing. I quickly rolled to my side and almost took my second tumble off the cliff as the blade struck the ground inches from my head. Not waiting for a third strike, I sprang to my feet in a knife fighter’s crouch.
I was fucked and I could tell she knew it. That’s the trouble with fighting a creature of death; they already know the outcome. It’s beyond unfair, but I haven’t found a situation yet where that matters.
The Santa Muerte stood at the edge of the cliff, glowing with an unholy white light. She cocked her head from side to side in a manner that struck me as more avian than human while lightly tossing her scythe from hand to hand. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing. We playing games now bitch?
She shook her head slowly and jabbed once at my chest. I knocked it aside and felt m
y arm go numb where it touched the shaft. What would have happened if she’d connected with my chest? I stepped back another foot as she flashed me a rictus grin.
She wasn’t even trying. She was playing, trying to provoke a reaction out of me, maybe force me to run. That’s what cats do. They poke at their squealing prey in order to elicit a final dash. If it doesn’t run, it’s no fun.
I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. Although it was probably suicidal, I came up on the balls of my feet and readied my charge. If I was going to die I’d do it with my hands around her bony neck. Nunez beat me to it.
He’d recovered from where I’d tossed him and went straight for the kill. Boom, boom, boom, Nunez fired three shots and all hit center mass. The fact they didn’t kill her wasn’t surprising, I’d have been surprised if they did. But she felt them. I could see the surprise flicker across her bony face. Score one for Bender and his cold iron rounds.
I lunged as she turned toward Nunez, but she was ready for me. She swept back with the scythe, but I was already past the blade. It didn’t help me, however. The shaft caught me in the side and sent me sprawling over the ledge.
Chapter 35
Mexico, Friday Midnight
The Dead Pools
Iwoke to the sounds of pounding drums and immediately wished I hadn’t. The world lurched and spun around, wickedly twisting in and out of focus. I would have vomited if there’d been anything left in my stomach after Mac’s elbow to my balls. That pain was a welcome memory compared to what I felt now.
If I’d flown straight off the cliff, I’d be dead. Instead I’d been swatted along the incline, tumbling into broken trees and shattered rocks, leaving skin and bone dribbled across the landscape like a drunk fumbling through a pocket of change.
My entire body was a patchwork of abrasions, bruises and stabbing pains that I gleefully welcomed as proof that my spine was somehow intact. The grinding along my right shoulder assured me that the same couldn’t be said for my collarbone and arm. In fact, I was fairly certain that I’d broken more bones than not. I was damned lucky I hadn’t broken my neck.
Scratch that, a broken neck and a clean death were far preferable to the situation that I found myself in now. Looming above me was the slack-jawed face of one of de Ora’s corpse soldiers. I knew what he was immediately. There was no mistaking the woodenness in his face as if the original owner had fled and the new tenant didn’t understand how to work the muscles, or didn’t care. The only individuality left was a seething hatred behind the eyes, and the stench.
Oh gods, what a smell. He stank of carnage: of blood and shit and smoke. For the second time in as many moments I would have spewed the contents of my stomach all over me if there’d been anything but bile left in my gut. Even so, I gagged and fought, flailing impotently against the icy fist that pulled me from the ground by my throat.
“That’s him,” a voice sneered from behind as I dangled above the ground. “Hold him still so I can get a good look.”
My brain froze. It overloaded. For a week I’d been pummeled with shocks and revelations. I’d been arrested and branded, uncovered a conspiracy and jogged through the suburbs outside Hell. I’d been thrown off a cliff and survived. I didn’t think anything could surprise me anymore, but I wasn’t prepared to hear that voice coming out of the dark.
Manx stepped around the corpse and into the throbbing bonfire light. “Julie, Julie, Julie,” he grinned. “I just knew you’d come to a bad end. I’d ask how you ended up here, but I’m afraid I already know. In less than an hour your friend and his merry band of thugs will be eliminated. I only wish that you could watch it happen. But don’t worry. I’m going to make sure that you’re a big part of the tide that sweeps our country clean.”
I twisted about in the corpse’s grip and spit in his face. It was juvenile, but it was all I had left. Manx laughed as he wiped it away. “Any other time I’d kill you for that,” he sneered, “but I’d hate to cheat you from the experience de Oras has planned. He’s never carved out a witch’s soul before, it should energize the Dust.”
“Secure him to the altar and tell de Oras that there’s been a change of plans. Julie will take the place of the offering.”
The corpse moved slowly and relentlessly, dragging me across the ground while I flailed helplessly in his grip. It was like fighting against a mountain. I punched and tore at his arm, but I was simply too weak to make any impact. Seconds later I felt myself being lifted off the ground before being slammed onto a stone slab.
If there were any justice left in the world I would have passed out when he yanked back my hands and tied them behind my head. There wasn’t. There was only the screaming pain.
Even agony subsides. In time I crawled out of the red glass prison behind my eyes and found that Manx had gone. Thank the goddess for small favors. It’s one thing to find yourself pounded into jelly and strapped to the killing floor. It’s an entirely worse proposition with an asshole gloating.
Yanking my mind back to the here and now I could tell that the show was about to begin. The air was soupy with energy while the furious drumming raced through a crescendo. Soon the dancers would start dropping from exhaustion, their energy wasted if left unharvested.
I couldn’t see him, but I felt him coming. I heard the exhilaration churning in his wake. The dancers first cheered, and then paused before stampeding towards climax. The bonfires dimmed; the drums stilled. Miguel de Oras had arrived.
I twisted my head to get a better look and immediately regretted it. I’d met evil before, fought Thulists drowning in their racial purity, hunted sorcerers twisted by haunts, but I’d never encountered such all-consuming nihilism. One glance at de Oras in his flapping people-suit and I realized how wrong our assessments were. If anything, Stevens had underplayed the madness in the man. It burned through him like marsh fire, ever ready to erupt onto the surface and burn everything to the ground.
Despite his madness, de Oras was a pro. Some of these prophet types are little more than preening hacks with sizzle, but he didn’t waste time soaking in the adoration of the crowd. Instead he plucked at the currents and began his base weave. I wouldn’t have understood the chant even if my Spanish had progressed beyond ordering drinks and food, but I knew the form. He’d build his circle first, pulling the energy from the dancers to reinforce his patterns. Only after the barriers were erected would he progress into the true meat of the ritual.
It gave me a little time to come up with a disruption, not much, but some. I couldn’t physically break the forms. Even if I weren’t tied down my wounds pinned me to the altar, but I wasn’t entirely helpless either. I wasn’t dead yet, so I still had options. Maybe I could weaken his circle from inside.
There’s a reason sorcerers usually work alone. It’s not just ego, it’s the fact that you can’t guarantee you’re all working for the same result. Yet so much of witchcraft is communal in nature that we often forget the liability of bringing another practitioner into our space. It was the type of mistake that I hoped to exploit.
I had to be careful, however. In my present condition my body wasn’t capable of generating the energy I needed. Everything it had was being used to keep me alive. Any energy I needed would have to be pulled from outside. I’d be sipping from the same well de Oras tapped.
Whispering a prayer to my goddess I opened my left hand and prepared to take my first sip. If I should ever again have the opportunity to attempt something this stupid, I hope the gods strike me down first. De Oras hadn’t forgotten about the communal nature of our magick, he’d counted on it.
Opening myself to his coven’s energy was tantamount to drinking from a choleric well. In a flash I realized that this was how they’d turned. Infected members spread their pollution throughout the coven like junkies sharing dirty needles. De Oras hadn’t dragged his people into the dark. As high priest he was simply the final expression of the corruption that had already taken hold.
And now I’d bit into the same poisoned a
pple. It tasted like ass. I immediately recoiled, whipping back the connection but I was too late. Tainted energy surged along my nerves, burning new pathways as it raced towards my core.
I jerked and thrashed against my restraints like a drowning man fighting to expel the water inside his lungs, but it was of no use. I’d spent a lifetime learning to channel energy, not block it. If I had defenses, I’d be a mundane.
For a moment, just a single fleeting golden moment, I thought I’d caught a reprieve when I heard gunfire echoing from the east. But it was not to be. With a final flourish de Oras stepped up and laid the last anchor. Thanks to Thomas I knew enough to panic when he set the death’s head agate behind my head.
If there were twelve more of those stones set about the circle, I was worse than fucked. Thirteen stones would keep death from crossing the boundary. They would trap my soul inside the circle after de Oras finished carving it from my hide. I hadn’t a clue as to what use de Oras might make of my soul, but I wasn’t ready to find out.
As if he’d read my mind, de Oras bent his lips to my ear as the circle blossomed into a dome of thorns. “You recognize the stones, yes? I can see that you do,” he whispered. His breath was hot and moist in my ear, swampy, and I instinctively turned away.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I would have jumped out of my skin if I could move. The Santa Muerte was less than a foot away. The bones of her face were pressed up against the barrier while her hands scrabbled along the shifting surface as if she were searching for a way in.
I shuddered and whipped my head back only to find de Oras standing over me, an obsidian blade glittering in his fist. “That simpering bitch can’t have you now,” he said gesturing to where the shrouded figure stood. Grabbing my face with his free hand he twisted my head about until I was forced to look into his eyes. “Even death itself can’t save you now,” he grinned. “Can you feel the darkfire you stole sinking its claws inside the meat? Soon you will be purged of light and ready for my knife.”
The Dead Pools Page 26
