He denied the charge with such a powerful Pfft that an aerosol of spit flew from his lips. “You are mistaking me for Chepe. He is the one who handles dead animals and wicked idols.”
“Who’s Chepe?” Sarah asked.
Mayor Flores answered before the preacher could. “He is the Mayan shaman for the region. He has been performing rituals and ceremonies in and around El Rosario for the last fifty years.”
“He is the one you should be talking to,” Guzman added with a scowl.
“He is wise and well respected,” the mayor countered. “He doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body.”
Guzman barked out a laugh. “Oh, no? Then explain this.” He winced and leaned his head back. When his neck stretched from the collar of his white shirt, rows of angry scratch marks appeared above his collar bone.
“Are you saying Chepe did that?” Sarah asked.
“I was loading my sound equipment into my car this morning,” he said. “One minute I was alone, and the next Chepe was standing beside me. He warned me not to go to town to preach. When I ignored him, he grabbed my arm.” Guzman’s eyes cut to one side. “And then he attacked me.”
I was sure more had happened between the shaman grabbing his arm and attacking him, but for now I was thinking about the shaman’s sudden appearance and that he had grappled with Guzman.
“Were you wearing your jacket?” I asked.
“Yes,” Guzman hissed, looking down at it. “He fouled it with his dirty hands.”
I waved Mayor Flores over. Though the smell I’d picked up was stronger than what had been on the cat, I still wasn’t sure whether it would register for a human. I asked the mayor to smell the sleeve of his jacket anyway. “I picked up something earlier,” I explained. “Peppery and sweet at the same time?”
When she leaned down and gave a few tentative sniffs, the preacher looked around like we were all crazy.
Mayor Flores straightened. “It comes from an incense called pom.”
“Is that something that can be found at the market?” I asked.
“No, pom is very sacred,” the mayor said. “It is used in powerful rituals. The Mayan shamans make it themselves.”
“How many shamans work in the region?” I asked.
“Just Chepe,” she answered.
17
We released Salvador Guzman with instructions to contact the police if he encountered Chepe again. The young preacher scowled as he replaced his sunglasses and strode away with a few final warnings about God’s wrath, but I sensed he would call if it meant exacting retribution on his rival.
The rest of us, including the mayor and police chief, regrouped back at our compound. I called Olaf inside. While everyone settled around the table, Rusty leaned against the office door in order to keep one eye on the surveillance monitors. He had the drones on autopilot.
“Chepe is not behind this,” Mayor Flores repeated before Sarah or I could start the meeting. “He is a healer. He is the connection to our ancestors, to the gods that watch over us. He would never hurt anyone.”
“That’s important for us to know,” I said. “However, there’s a reason he scuffled with Guzman. There’s also a reason he left a dead cat in here and cast some sort of magic over the building.”
“Dabu felt it,” Yoofi said, nodding. “Very strong magic.”
“Who knows what else he’s been up to,” Sarah put in.
As Mayor Flores filled in the police chief, I wondered about the magic humming around our space. It hadn’t given Yoofi’s god the willies like the teleportation magic had done, but according to Yoofi that could have been because they were different spells rather than cast by different practitioners. When the mayor finished, Juan Pablo shook his head. Both wore expressions of doubt that their Mayan shaman, or sacerdote, had been involved in anything unseemly.
Sarah pointed an accusing finger at Mayor Flores. “When I asked yesterday, you denied knowing anyone in the area who practiced magic.”
“That is because Chepe does not practice magic. He invokes favors.”
“Semantics,” Sarah said with a dismissive shake of her head. “You understood what I was getting at. From now on, we expect honest answers. By withholding information, you’re only making our job more difficult. A job you hired us to do, I should remind you.”
“Damn,” Rusty muttered from the doorway.
Mayor Flores’s cheeks reddened. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“All right, everyone,” I said, showing my hands. “Let’s all calm down.” I waited for the mayor to settle back in her chair before proceeding. “Mayor Flores, Sarah does have a point. Had we known about Chepe’s abilities—regardless of whether he’s involved in what’s happening—we might be further along.”
Sarah appeared surprised that I’d come to her defense. So did the mayor. For a moment, she looked like she was going to protest before pressing her lips together and nodding.
“Now, is there anyone else in the area who practices magic or can invoke favors?” I asked her.
“No,” the mayor said quietly. “Chepe is the only one.”
“Do you know the extent of what he can do?” I asked.
“Like I said, he appeals to the gods and our ancestors to heal and watch over us, to see that we have a good crop and harvest. Everything he does is to ensure our protection and wellbeing.”
Thoughts of child sacrifices flashed through my mind.
“I’m going to ask a tough question now,” I said. “Is there any reason you can think of—any at all—for why he might have turned from the forces that protect you to forces that would want to hurt you?”
“No!” she cried.
“Any mental changes?” I asked.
When she translated for the police chief, he shook his head emphatically. “No,” he echoed.
“You cannot believe what Salvador Guzman said,” Mayor Flores insisted. “You saw him. He is brash and aggressive. If they fought, it was because of something Salvador did. Chepe is kind and gentle. He was here for the festival last month, performing the ceremonies as he has for the last fifty years.”
“Where can we find him?” Sarah asked.
“Chepe has not been seen in town since the festival,” the mayor replied. “He lives alone, outside the mountain village of Concul. There was a telephone at the village store once, but it no longer works.”
“How far is the drive?” I asked.
“Not far, but the road is in poor condition.”
I found the village of Concul on my tablet and examined the winding route. Even at a conservative speed of twenty to twenty-five miles an hour we could be there in under an hour. “All right,” I said. “Sarah, Olaf, Yoofi, and I will head up to his place. Rusty, you’re going to stay here and pull double duty: keeping an eye on the town and an eye out for Nicho. We’ll radio if we need you.”
“No problemo, boss. But that means I’ll need both drones in town.”
“Fine,” I said, then turned to Mayor Flores. “I’d like you and Juan Pablo to stay in town as well. Remind people of the curfew and to keep their doors and windows locked. Rusty will be here if you need him.”
I was giving the mayor and police chief busy work, but I didn’t know what we were driving into. The vampires had a magic-user on their team, and the Mayan shaman was apparently the only one in the area who practiced magic. I didn’t know if he was their magic-user, but if my worst suspicions came to pass, I didn’t want civilians along for the ride.
“What are you going to do to him?” Mayor Flores asked nervously.
“Depends on what we find,” I answered honestly.
Mayor Flores hadn’t been kidding about the road. Cut from the hillsides, it was narrow and eroded. Sarah kept the van in four-wheel drive as she climbed collapses and swerved to avoid boulders and washouts. Fortunately, no vehicles came from the other direction. There wouldn’t have been room.
“The road should level out shortly,” I told Sarah. “Then it’s another mile to Chepe’s place.”
I turned to the back seat, where Olaf clutched his MP88 and Yoofi was enshrouded in smoke.
“We don’t know Chepe’s allegiance,” I reminded them. “So what does that mean?”
“We don’t shoot unless shot at,” Olaf replied in his deadened voice.
“Right. And let’s remember that the shot could come in the form of magic.”
“Ooh, I hope not,” Yoofi said, his eyes large and fearful through the haze.
My jaw tensed. Powerful or not, Yoofi’s magic was useless if Dabu ran and hid every time our opponent flexed his muscles. I’d been mulling the problem for the last several miles.
“Have you ever tried talking tough to Dabu?” I asked.
“Talk tough, Mr. Wolfe?”
“Every time Dabu goes into hiding, you have to coax him back out with treats—and this morning, dancing? If the shit goes down, we’re not going to have time for that. Dabu is supposed to be a god, right? Well, maybe he should start acting like one and not a kid at his first day of kindergarten.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’re spoiling him, Yoofi.”
Yoofi started to bring his cigar back to his mouth, but then stopped and examined it.
“You are,” I insisted. “Look at you. The next time Dabu tries to run away, I want you to do something different. Instead of offering him more, tell him he’s cut off unless he stays and fights like a god.”
“Ooh, Dabu’s not going to like that.”
“Which is exactly the point. Maybe it will incentivize him to stop turning tail.”
Yoofi frowned in thought, then screwed the cap back on his flask. “Okay,” he said. “I try that.”
“It’s leveling out,” Sarah said.
I straightened in my seat as the van heaved over the final feet of our steep climb and arrived onto a road that was basically a pair of rutted tracks through the weeds. It was a huge improvement from the road we’d been on for the last twenty miles, though. Overhead, a dense canopy cast the woods in dusky shadow. Something in my wolf nature didn’t like this place.
I consulted the map on my tablet. “The trail to Chepe’s place is a couple hundred meters ahead. Olaf, let’s get out and walk. I’ll take front watch, you take rear.” The van was designed to be inconspicuous, but I didn’t care for the lack of any kind of mounted gun. It was one on a growing list of requisitions I planned to make when we got back to Vegas.
“Don’t you … run,” Yoofi grunted.
For a second I thought he was talking to me, but when I twisted around, I found him stooped forward, one hand clamping his brow, the other seizing his staff. Below his clenched eyelids, his gritting teeth shone white.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“If you run, no more brandy … no more smokes…”
Shit, he feels something.
My body jerked against my seatbelt as Sarah slammed the breaks. I straightened to find two clowns standing twenty feet ahead of the van. I immediately recognized the one on the left as Calaca, the skeletal clown we’d encountered the day before. Beside him stood his opposite, a clown with a big head, enormous girth, and clown shoes turned inward: Torpe.
“We’re surrounded,” Sarah said.
I looked in the rearview mirror. Two more clowns were approaching the van from behind: Rata, the rat-faced clown, and a dumb-looking clown whom I recognized from our briefing as Baboso.
I handed Sarah her M4 and readied my MP88.
“Their hearts!” I reminded everyone. “Drop ’em, and I’ll do the rest!” The wolf in me was eager for the match we’d been deprived of the night before.
“Wait,” Sarah said. “One of the clowns is missing. Loco.”
Orange flashed in my peripheral vision. I turned in time to catch a crazed, cross-eyed clown hitting my side of the van like a mortar. My helmet cracked against the reinforced glass, and I lost my grip on my weapon. When the world went upside down, I realized the van had flipped. I braced my arms against the ceiling as the van tumbled and crashed downhill.
From behind me, Yoofi wailed for his god to come back.
18
The van slammed into something solid, and we came to a violent stop. A foot in front of me, the polycarbonate windshield had been smashed a snowy white. I could only make out a dapple of sunlight and the dark green of leaves beyond. We’d been nailed and nailed hard.
Though my head continued to spin, I had enough directional sense to know my side of the van was aimed skyward. I tore my seatbelt away and pawed the footwell for my lost weapon.
“Everyone all right?” I asked, but it came out a garble. The right side of my jaw had been knocked loose. I pried my helmet off the rest of the way and, using a thumb, snapped the joint back into place. The strained tissue healed immediately. Inhaling, I picked up the coppery scent of fresh blood. Not my own.
Beside me—actually, below me—Sarah was slumped over, her body twisted at an odd angle.
“Hey,” I said, reaching over to give her a light shake. “Can you hear me?”
She was warm beneath her suit, and breathing, but she didn’t respond. Olaf was out in the van’s rear. I couldn’t even see Yoofi. He must have fallen to the floor. I spotted my weapon by Olaf’s feet. I was stretching back for it, my head starting to clear, when a shadow darted past the light through the front windshield. The van rocked as something scaled it.
Crap.
I lunged for my weapon, but before my fingers could close around its stock, my door flew away. A bony hand seized my shoulder and yanked me from the vehicle. I grunted as I landed in the arms of the big vampire clown, Torpe. He drove a knee into my gut, then pinned my arms behind me.
“Think you can hold me?” I snarled, ripping my arms free.
I turned, my talons flashing toward his neck. But before I made contact, Rata darted in and landed a rock-solid blow to my face. My jaw clunked loose again.
Motherfucker.
I spun toward the rat-faced vamp, only to be met by a third vampire, Baboso, who landed a pair of cracking blows to my ribs. I doubled over. Loco jumped onto my back. My fist pistoned back, slamming into the red ball covering his nose. Cartilage burst beneath my knuckles. I knifed my talons into his neck, wrenching and twisting them through tissue and bone. Hissing, the clown managed to tear himself away while he still had a head.
I stood in a hunker, arms spread, talons dripping, breaths cycling hard and fast. The vampire clowns circled me, several of them grinning inside the paint that covered their mouths. Loco straightened his neck with a sick crunch and crazed laugh before replacing the red ball on his healing nose. The vampires may have appeared ridiculous on the surface, but beneath the cheap costumes, they were killers incarnate.
So are you, a wolfish voice reminded me.
“Bring it,” I growled.
With a collective shriek, the vampires rushed in. The next minute was a bloody melee of slashing and biting. At first, I gave better than I got. Vampires staggered from my furious, hulking form, faces and torsos gashed, shredded clown paraphernalia littering the forest floor. If not for their regenerative ability, the fight would have been over in seconds.
But the bloodsuckers kept coming back, and it soon became painfully clear that while I could match their speed, I was no match for their numbers. I dropped a hand to my tactical belt.
Need to start staking them. Even the odds.
I pulled out the first in my line of stakes. As the next vampire flashed in—Rata—I met him with a hammering chest blow. The metal tip crunched through sternum and ribs before skewering the shriveled flesh of his heart. His narrow rat eyes flew wide as he stiffened and fell straight back.
As I reached for another stake, two vampires landed superhuman blows to my sides. I staggered, breathing stunned, tears springing from my eyes. By the time I blinked my vision clear, the stake was out of Rata’s chest, and he was sitting up, the wound already half closed. He stood and joined the other circling vampires.
Gonna have to hit them harder, faste
r…
I drew two more stakes, one for each hand. As a vampire flashed in for a frontal assault, I swung with my left, already anticipating the crunch of penetration. But the vampire veered deftly away at the same time my back exploded in pain. With a roar, I whipped around to catch the bloodsucker who had attacked from behind. But he was no longer there. My stake sliced through air. A fresh attack to another blind spot buckled my legs.
“Goddammit!” I bellowed in frustration.
The vampires answered with high laughter.
Panting, I swiped at the next one coming toward me. He slipped the stake as my legs buckled from another attack. Through some unspoken exchange, the vampires had shifted strategies, getting me to commit to one of their numbers, then hitting me hard from behind.
And the attacks were taking their toll. My regenerative abilities couldn’t keep up.
I made a weak lunge toward the vampire Baboso. Even had I connected, I wouldn’t have done much damage. Boom—another shot to my exposed back. Pain bolted down both legs and dropped me to my knees. Torpe, the big clown, stepped forward and drove a giant shoe against the side of my head.
Dull pain and stars.
I collapsed onto my side, the stakes fallen from my hands. The big clowns, Torpe and Baboso, took turns pounding me. I strained to get up, to fight back, but the repeated bruising to my muscles were turning them to sludge. And the vampires could do this all day. I watched helplessly as the other three vamps scaled the toppled van like venomous reptiles.
Kill them…
The chilling voice swept in from the surrounding forest, like dark magic, becoming words in my head. But the message wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for the vampires. Was this Chepe’s doing?
Kill them all…
“They’re coming!” I shouted toward the van.
The vampires working me over redoubled their attack. I grunted and tried to shield my body, but my wincing gaze remained fixed on the van. If I didn’t do something, Sarah, Olaf, and Yoofi would be dead within seconds. I crawled a hand toward my tactical vest where I’d packed several grenades.
But things were moving too quickly. Loco had already reached the passenger door and begun crawling inside. I watched in dread as his head and torso disappeared—and then reappeared in a hail of automatic gunfire.
Blue Shadow (Blue Wolf Book 2) Page 14
