The old man’s hands shook for a moment, and he clutched one of them into a fist as he swayed, then sat down carefully in the chair behind him. He looked away from them, his eyes unfocused, as if he were reliving memories in his head. He picked up his empty glass and rolled it between his twisted brown fingers. “Your father and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”
“But he saved your life once. My mother wrote of you in her diary. And you know this is bigger than just a grudge between him and you.”
Diego’s gaze shifted back to Remington, piercing in its intensity, the dark of his eyes bottomless.
He still wasn’t budging. Remington pushed harder. “The Gates of Nyx could be opened permanently, leaving a bridge between our world and that of the Darkin that could allow them to overtake us. It would be a global disaster.”
Diego cursed under his breath and pulled at his grizzled beard. “Who leads them?”
“Rathe,” China interrupted.
A hiss of breath escaped Diego’s lips, and his eyes narrowed into hate-filled slits as he glared at China, as if just recognizing she’d been standing there. Perhaps he’d taken no note of her before because she was a woman—easily dismissed by a Hunter like Diego. “Darkin dross, you have no business here. It’s because of your kind I have no right leg.”
Remy stepped slightly in front of her, just enough to let the old man know that she was under his protection. “She’s here to help us defeat Rathe.”
Diego gave a dry bark of laughter, devoid of humor. “When a Darkin rises up against her own kind, that will be the day Hell freezes over. She’s fooling you, boy. She means to take the Book from you and give it to Rathe the minute she kills you.”
China shoved past Remington, her body shaking. “Hell’s iced over right now, and I’m not the only Darkin resisting Rathe. So are the vampires. Now are you going to help or let the world come crashing to an end?”
“Hunters don’t work with Darkin.” Diego spat into the dirt floor at her feet, then turned to Remington. “Get her out of here, and I’ll talk to you.”
China growled. Remy could sense the frustration and heat coming off of her. She fairly vibrated with it. He might not know China well, but he knew her well enough to see she was good and pissed off—enough to shift and take a bite of Diego’s ass, literally.
He grasped her lightly about the wrist. “It’s best if you wait for me outside.”
She locked her glare on him, the angle of her jaw defiant. “I don’t have to go anywhere.”
“I know.” He slid his hand down grasping hers and gave it a slight squeeze. Her eyes widened slightly then softened for an instant.
He was asking a lot of her, especially for her to trust him. It was a hell of a lot more than he should ask of her, considering they knew so little of each other. He knew he couldn’t secure the piece of the Book alone, but he also knew he needed the information Diego possessed, and the old man wasn’t about to give it up with her standing there. He was old guard—the kind that saw the world in black and white with no room for Darkin of any stripe. “I’m asking you, wait for me outside.”
She threw one last withering look at Diego, lifted her chin, and then turned on her heel and sashayed between the men gathered just outside the doorway, without a single look back. Colt and Winchester could both learn a little bit of grace and how to make an exit from her, Remington thought. He knew she wasn’t backing down, just being strategic.
He turned back. Diego indicated with a nod that Remington should join him at the table. Diego had obviously been drinking. Remington dropped into the other chair and leaned back. Diego ignored the plate of food in front of him. The beans now had a dark, drying crust, streaked with bits of hardening white fat. It didn’t look nearly as appetizing as it had when Remington had first come in. Perhaps Diego had lost his taste for hunting just as he had lost his taste for his meal. Hunters, like his brother Winn, sometimes did. Always fighting, each battle never the last, wore on a man.
Diego grabbed the brown bottle sitting in the middle of the table about the neck and shook it. A slight sloshing sound indicated it was almost empty. The old Hunter motioned to one of his men who promptly brought a fresh bottle and another glass and set them down in front of Diego.
Diego poured them each a measure of the dark caramel liquor. “You’d better drink.”
“I didn’t come to socialize.”
Diego’s brows pinched together. “Nothing social about it. You’re going to need it for what I’m about to tell you.”
Remington took the glass and sniffed. Tequila. Aged tequila. Good stuff if he had the time, which he didn’t. He downed it in a long, slow swallow, letting it burn a path down to his stomach. It was awfully early in the morning to be drinking, but if it made getting information from Diego easier, then what the hell.
“The journey you seek is a dangerous one.” Diego took a sip of his drink and shook his head. Fear flickered in the old man’s eyes. “You likely will not survive. I barely made it out myself, and we never made it all the way in.”
Remington’s heartbeat stuttered, then picked up the pace double-time. He set his glass down with a thunk on the table. “When were you there? How?”
“You don’t think you’re the first Hunter to go after Elwin’s piece of the Book of Legend, do you?” Diego poured out another measure of the tequila and took another drink. “How many are going with you on this journey?”
“Just me and the shifter.”
Diego kicked back the rest of his entire glass in one swift swallow, then grimaced and looked down into his glass. “It can’t be done. I lost thirty men when I went to search for it. You and a shifter? Alone? You won’t survive.”
Remington leaned in and waited until he made eye contact with Diego. “I don’t have a choice. We have until the new moon before Rathe tries to open the Gates of Nyx permanently.”
The spark in Diego’s eyes died, turning the brown flat and lifeless. “You’re asking me to give you a death sentence.”
“I’m asking you to help me save the world.”
Diego shook his head sadly and sighed. “Show me what you have. Then I will tell you the rest of what you need to know.”
Remington pulled the scrap of paper from his breast pocket and carefully unfolded it, spreading it smooth with the palm of his hand.
Recognition flitted across Diego’s face. “My map.” He peered intently at Remington, his eyes narrowing. “Where’d you get that?”
“I guess you haven’t heard yet that the Bisbee bank was blown up.”
One of Diego’s dark brows arched upward. “That Darkin you’re with have anything to do with it?”
Remington nodded. “She was working with Colt. Pa told him he could find the map in your safety-deposit box.”
Diego muttered under his breath. “I should have known Cyrus would send one of you boys after it.”
Remington glanced down at the paper before him. “What exactly is this?”
“Back in 1519 Cortez and the Spanish Hunters on his crew brought Elwin’s piece of the Book of Legend with them to Mexico. It had been captured as a spoil of war when the southern half of the Kingdom of Navarre was taken by the Crown of Castile in 1513. The king sought to keep it hidden and sent it with Cortez to be secreted in a place where no one would find it.” A fine tremor shook Diego’s hand as he traced the lines on the map with his outstretched fingers. “This was a journey to hell and back. We thought we’d take Elwin’s piece of the Book . . .” He locked gazes with Remington. “We were wrong. It takes a Darkin to make it past the final barrier Cortez had the natives call on the Darkin to erect.”
The adobe bricks were digging into China’s back as she leaned against the outside of the house and surveyed the town. The men stationed just outside Diego’s door eyed her warily and kept their weapons at the ready. Even though she was in the shade, her skin was still hot with anger and the urge to shift.
She would not be dismissed, not by some old Hunter, who sh
ould have known better, and not by a Jackson brother. The only reason she hadn’t shifted into a mountain lion, shoved Diego to the floor, and taken a bite out of him was because of Remington.
His eyes had said what his mouth could not. Please trust me. He’s just an angry old Hunter. And God help her, she had given him her trust. If Diego didn’t explain the squiggly lined map to Remington, she could just come back later that night and steal it and figure it out herself.
A thin trail of pale dust kicked up into the air as a group of men approached. At the center was a young man in military garb with Diego’s men flanking him. He looked barely out of puberty, and his face was far too smooth to be that of a seasoned soldier.
It took a moment for China to realize the rider was not male at all, but a proud young woman. Her skin the color of milky coffee, her thick, dark hair bound at the nape. A heavy military jacket buttoned up the front disguised most of her shape.
Her gaze flicked to China as the small group dismounted, leaving their horses in the hands of the men stationed outside, and she passed by her with a confident stride to enter Diego’s home. It was just a glance, but enough to connect them. It was as if the young woman had said, this is a man’s world, but that doesn’t mean you must accept what is given to you. Just then it hit China. There was no reason for her to stand out here exiled. If Jackson hadn’t gotten what he needed out of the old man by now, then chances were they’d worn out their welcome anyhow.
She let the warmth seep through her bones, like hot water, as her form squeezed and compressed, growing smaller. Her skin hardened into overlapping scales, and her tongue and jaw elongated until she was a lizard. The men guarding the house were so busy talking to the new arrivals, they didn’t even notice her shift. She skittered into the home and zipped up the wall.
Diego gestured to the young woman. “I told you my submarine crew was coming soon. This here’s Monica Nation, the daughter of my submarine captain, Karl Nation. She’ll take you to Caborca and from there to the coastal waters where the submarine is kept.”
Clearly Diego and Remington had discussed a great deal while she’d just been hanging about waiting. The man had a submarine? Why? He lived in the damn Sonoran Desert.
“And you’re sure the submarine can take us to the location on the map?”
“Ain’t no way faster.” Diego leaned down and pointed to the map. The remnants of breakfast had been cleared away, and the folded paper spread out like a cloth that hung over the edges of the small table. Diego’s gnarled finger traced the coastline along Mexico until he hit a bay just above Guatemala. “It’s as close as you’ll get. You’ll need to walk in the rest of the way. And once you get to the Veracruz province, you’ll need this to decipher the rest of the map.” He scooted back on his chair and pulled a small steamer trunk from beneath his bed.
“That’s a bit large to pack on the back of a horse,” Remington said.
“Not the trunk, boy. What’s in it.” Diego hid his movements as he worked the lock on the front of the trunk, opened it, and pulled out a thick book bound in odd brown leather.
Remington seemed pragmatic, all except for the slight lift in his shoulders. “What is it?”
“A translation of the Mendoza Codex. The writings my Spanish ancestors put down about the Aztecs, the tribes they subjugated, and their lore. Them Indians know what’s down there, and they worked with the Spaniards to hide it. I tried my best with an interpreter to make a coded map that can guide you through to where the piece of the Book of Legend was hidden. You have that. But once you get inside the temple there’s two rivers and trials you’ll need to pass before you can get to the Aztec hell itself where the bone gods wait to strip the flesh off of you.”
“That sounds encouraging.”
Diego grumbled. “This ain’t just some hunt boy; this is the Aztec land of the dead. You ain’t meant to come out alive. So listen up. The River of Scorpions is a pit filled with the critters. Wide enough you can’t step across it and deep enough that if you step into it, you’ll drown in them.”
Remington swallowed hard. China made a note that Remington appeared not to be fond of scorpions. One never knew when information like that would give a girl an advantage.
He glanced up at Diego. “And the other river you’ve mentioned is more of the same?”
Diego looked grim and drank straight from the bottle. China watched his throat work as he stared at Remington with bleak eyes. “The next is called the River of Blood. It’s an acidic river that flows rust red from the heart of the caves and reeks of Darkin. It’ll strip the flesh right off your bones. We lost three men crossing that alone.”
China bet it was sulfuric acid. Underground caverns could be full of them. And these were just the river crossings? She couldn’t wait to hear what other fiendish Hunter traps and natural barriers they’d be up against.
“And the trials? Are they varied as well?”
Diego nodded and took another drink. “Each one represents a fear meant to challenge your brain as well as your mettle.”
Remington gritted his teeth and looked deep into the old man’s brown eyes. “If Elwin’s piece of the Book has been there that long, how do we even know it hasn’t moldered away?”
“We don’t. But you tell me how else the Chosen is supposed to put it back together and close the Gates of Nyx if we don’t get it out of there?”
Remington’s shoulders stiffened, and his face turned dour. “There is no other way except by reuniting the Book. Marley and I have researched Hunter lore a thousand times over looking for anything else that might work against Rathe.”
China shifted back into her human form, and every eye turned in her direction as she seemed to sprout out of thin air. Weapons were drawn. She straightened up from her crouch on the dirt floor. “There is nothing else.”
Diego’s face darkened with fury. His narrowed eyes flicked from China to Remington. “I can’t stop you from going on this death march, but are you sure it’s wise taking this Darkin?”
Remington stood. “Wise, no. Necessary, yes.”
China grumbled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence in my loyalty, Jackson.”
He gave her a half-tilted smile. “You’re welcome.”
“How large is your party?” the captain’s daughter asked.
Remington braced his feet wider apart, mimicking the military woman’s stance, putting them on equal terms. He did it so effortlessly, China had to appreciate it. Like her, he understood the importance of knowing the mind of both your ally and foe alike. “Just the two of us.”
The captain’s daughter nodded. “It’ll make it easier on the submarine if you are taking fewer people and supplies, but ultimately a harder journey.”
“Doesn’t look as if we have a choice, Miss Nation.”
“First Mate Nation, if you please. I’ve earned my rank.”
China respected the woman in a way she didn’t Miss Arliss. She liked how the captain’s daughter hadn’t even flinched at the mention of her being a Darkin. Perhaps like Remington, First Mate Nation understood that there were differences among Darkin just as there were among humans. Some were good, some were bad, and some just were.
“How long will it take to get to Caborca and the submarine?” China asked.
Monica’s shoulders straightened slightly. “At least a day and a half by horse to Caborca, another to the coast where my father has the submarine moored.”
China knew enough about Rathe to know that if he thought his greatest advantage would be at the new moon, he wouldn’t delay. By the time they reached the coast, they would have already used nearly one of their three precious weeks until the moon disappeared in the sky.
Beneath their feet the earth began to tremble. At first China thought it might be an earthquake, but the tremors were too even and regular, almost like gigantic footsteps. She knelt, pressing her fingertips to the compacted dirt. There was no roll and pitch to the earth, but she could feel a grinding sensation.
Sc
reams and the whinny of frightened horses echoed outside. Her preternaturally sharp sense of smell picked out the dirty scent of machine oil and the greasy stench of coal smoke. And the sulfur of another Darkin. Rathe had sent more of his minions to stop or kill her and Remington.
One of Diego’s guards burst into the house. “Pardon, senõr, a large machine has entered the village.” An explosion outside shook the adobe house, sending down a shower of grit and dust on top of them. Everyone crouched low.
“What the blue blazes was that?” Remington growled.
China didn’t wait; she didn’t hesitate. She’d grabbed the codex while everyone was distracted and tucked it beneath her jacket, then turned and dashed for the door to look out. A giant scorpion created from metal, gears, and pulleys was ripping through the houses with a massive brass claw. It crushed the adobe walls as if they were sandcastles.
In a second Remington was by her side. “What is that?”
“It’s a message from Rathe. See that man atop the driving platform?”
Remy squinted. Between the bulbous glass eyes of the mechanical monster he could barely make out the driver in his red jacket and black broad-brimmed hat. “You know him?”
“That’s Dr. Adder Morpheus, a snakeoil peddler turned demon who works for Rathe.” The tone of disgust in her voice indicated they weren’t allies.
The metallic shell of the machine flashed in the sunlight as it drew closer, ripping a path of destruction through town in a beeline for Diego’s house. “What does he want?”
“I reckon he’s here to stop us, kill us, or both.”
There wasn’t time to think things through or create a plan. Remy swiveled back to Diego, First Mate Nation, and the other men under Diego’s command. “Get out now!”
Shutters flew open as men scattered out of the adobe house through the windows. First Mate Nation helped Diego to the doorway. It was clear to Remy the old hunter was in no condition to run. He hoisted him up over his shoulder and prepared to make a dash between the scorpion’s legs. A shadow fell across the doorway, and Remington looked up to see a big brass claw descending toward them.
The Chosen Page 10
