Workers, I guessed, going home for the day. I didn’t relax my readiness, though. The Emporium could be using them.
“Boa tarde,” they murmured, nodding.
“Good afternoon,” I echoed in Portuguese.
One of the men hesitated, but when his companion didn’t pause, he hurried on without stopping. We watched them disappear down the narrow dirt road.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Portuguese in the country always stop to chat. They want to know everything about you.”
Kenna laughed. “Ah, give ’em a break. They look knackered. Probably worked all day.”
“That’s just it, they should be excited about going to a pub or something, but they’re heading away from town.”
“Maybe they need to go home and shower.”
“I guess.” The path leading back to the villa was in the same direction the men had taken, and now it was me who was reluctant to let Kenna go, though she could best me in a fair fight. Those two didn’t look like Emporium agents, and twenty just like them wouldn’t be a match for her.
“I’ll see you later then. Stay out of trouble.” Climbing onto her bicycle, she rode off without waiting for a response.
I headed in the other direction. It was only ten more minutes before I reached the edge of town. The few people out and about stared at me as I passed, smiling and nodding. The stares weren’t unusual. In the larger cities, you almost never saw a Portuguese riding a bicycle—the traffic on the roads and the crush of humanity on the sidewalks made it too difficult. While bike riding was more common in smaller towns, walking was still the preferred mode of transportation for all but the very young. Clearly, I’d been pegged for a tourist. Not exactly the best way to blend in, but there was no changing that now.
I’d ridden up and down almost every street in the town, finding nothing unusual besides the stares, before I steered toward the hospital. An ambulance was pulled up there, and I recognized Dona Mafalda standing near it with a vacant smile on her face.
Leaving the bike, I went to her side. “Hello again.”
She turned toward me as if trying to remember who I was.
“I’m staying at the villa? Just came in a few hours ago.”
“Oh, yes. Are you enjoying your stay? Do you need something?” Her gaze pulled toward the hospital door, and then back to me.
“No, we’re getting along fine. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Someone’s not sick I hope,” I said.
A fleeting frown and another glance toward the hospital. “No, not sick.”
I was about to press further, when a little, bubble-shaped orange car screeched up to the curb and a woman in her mid-thirties jumped out. She was thin, though tall for a Portuguese woman, and mad as hell.
My hand moved toward the gun tucked in a holster at my back, the bulge hidden beneath my T-shirt, but the woman didn’t glance at me as she rushed to Dona Mafalda.
She threw her arms around the older woman. “He’s dead? Really dead? I told you something would happen, that you needed to leave this town. It’s a death trap. Why didn’t you listen?”
Dona Mafalda enfolded the newcomer in her embrace. “Everything is fine, daughter,” she said, using the term daughter like an endearment. “Everything is fine.”
The younger woman pushed away. “It’s not fine. Papa’s dead. DEAD! And you call me like he just has a cold.”
“Bridida, calm yourself. It was his time, that’s all, my love.”
“No it wasn’t! Mother, can’t you see? Something’s wrong here. I’m worried about you.”
“Me? But I’m perfectly fine.” Dona Mafalda’s brow wrinkled with confusion.
“You’re not fine. And you’re coming home with me. I’m getting you out of here. Something’s in the water or the air. Papa’s gone, and I’m not losing you too.”
“But my café, and the villa . . . new guests arrived today.” Dona Mafalda’s gaze moved in my direction, as if asking for help.
Her daughter whirled around to glare at me. “Who are you?”
I made my voice as mild as possible. “Paulo. I’m staying at the villa. Your mother takes care of the place.”
“Not anymore. I’m sorry. Just leave the key under the mat when you leave. I’ll tell the owner.” The anger in Brigida’s eyes pierced me. “But I wouldn’t stay here if I were you.”
This brought Dona Mafalda out of her daze. “Oh, dear, don’t say that. Monte Vinha is a beautiful town. You always said so. I thought someday you and the kids were going to come back and run the café.”
“Not anymore, we’re not. Let’s go. You’re coming with me.” Brigida put her arm around her mother, urging her toward the funny orange vehicle. “Wait in the car with Rute and Zezinho while I go inside and take care of things.”
“I guess I can come for a visit,” Dona Mafalda murmured, smiling as they passed me on the way to the curb.
Two young children were now peering at us from the car, their noses pressed against the window. A boy and a girl, maybe a year or two apart, both preschoolers.
“Don’t let them out of the car,” warned Brigida with the voice of someone who expected to be obeyed. “And don’t tell them about Papa . . . I’ll talk to them later.”
Once Dona Mafalda was inside the car, her daughter strode purposefully toward the hospital, her fists clenched at her side. I stepped in her way.
“Oh!” she said, apparently having already forgotten I existed.
“Please. What’s going on?”
Her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared. “What happened is that my father died today.”
“He was sick?” Her father had to be the man we’d found outside the villa, which explained why he’d been there in the first place.
My comment enraged her. “No, he wasn’t sick! At least not with anything the doctors could find. I talked to one of them on the phone, and he said my father was simply old, but both his parents and grandparents lived passed their nineties, and he has four older brothers, all still in great health. He was only sixty! But this town is cursed—hardly anyone makes it to seventy.”
She had to be wrong, of course. Living in another town meant she wouldn’t have kept up with all the residents. “Has anyone else you know here died?”
“Of course—that’s the problem.”
“How many?” Maybe she was talking one or two more.
“Let me see. There was Dona Ana, Senhor Gato, the eye doctor, the guy who ran the bakery by our house . . .” Her fists unclenched and her fingers popped out as she spoke each name. “Then my friend Monica’s parents and Fatima’s father and what’s-his-name’s uncle—I can’t remember his name, but we’re all friends on Facebook—”
By the time she ran down the list, she had used the fingers of both hands—twice.
“Are these older people? In their sixties? Fifties?”
“Sixties, like my father. They have children and grandchildren. It seems every day there’s a new death. My friends and I talk about it all the time.”
“Do they get sick first? Go to the hospital?”
“Sometimes. But mostly they just . . . slow down and don’t wake up one morning.”
She could be describing old age. “So no one else is getting sick? No children?”
“Not that I’ve heard about.” Her eyes widened. “Are you saying the old people are dying? Is it some kind of virus?”
I wasn’t suggesting that, but from what she was describing, a virus was a possibility. Except viruses that affected the old often affected children too. Then again, whatever experiments the Emporium was conducting in their fields might eventually kill everyone. Maybe older residents were only the beginning.
“Do-do-do you think it’s going to spread? Oh, dear Lord.” She looked heavenward and crossed herself. “My mother might already be sick. Maybe that’s why she never gets upset when her friends die. She doesn’t seem to really understand that her own husband is g
one.”
The woman looked ready to faint, and I put a steadying hand on her arm. “I saw an old man in the park today. He was fine. Just take your mother home with you and take care of her.”
“Right, right.” Her head bobbed up and down quickly, as if clamping onto my words. “I have to go inside and make arrangements for my father, but I’ll take her back to Évora with me. I can’t lose her. My children would be devastated. They’re already going to miss their grandfather. He was their favorite.” The tears I’d been expecting from her all along began to fall as her anger faded.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” I hated seeing women cry. It made me want to melt metal or burst something into flames. Heat built inside my body, and I took my hand away before she felt it.
There was nothing I could do for her or her mother that she wasn’t already doing, but I wished I could tell her I would fix the town. Problem was, where the Emporium was concerned, repairing what was wrong might not be possible because they didn’t care about mortal casualties like we did. Still, even if it meant killing every last Emporium agent with my bare hands, I would try to make things right here.
“Thank you.” She stepped around me and continued her journey into the hospital, wiping furiously at her wet face.
I glanced at Dona Mafalda to see how she was taking her daughter’s orders to remain in the car. She sat there smiling, staring through the window with a blank expression and looking for all the world like a sweet grandmother. Apparently, whatever was insulating her from the death of her husband also made her accepting of Brigida’s stronger will.
It was downright creepy.
The little boy had climbed into the front seat of the car and was playing with the steering wheel. His older sister still pressed her face against the window, her forehead wrinkled with concern. I hoped they told her sooner rather than later about her grandfather. A hundred and eighty years had taught me that the truth, however devastating, was better than wondering why the adults were suddenly acting crazy.
As I started to turn away, the girl’s small hand came up to wave at me. I nodded and waved back, feeling a little silly but glad I did it when a smile replaced the worry on her face.
Back on my bicycle, I headed out of town, realizing that the plastic on the bike handles was melting away. I was also beginning to feel jumpy inside.
I needed to calm down—and I needed more curequick from my pack. The cravings came faster each day, no matter how I tried putting them off.
That was when I noticed a guy on a moped following me. Not glancing again in his direction, I made a few turns just to make sure.
Yep.
And he didn’t look Portuguese.
Losing a single tail might not be a problem, especially now that night was setting in. If there were others set up around the town, I might be in trouble.
It bothered me was that I had no idea how long the man had been following me. Since the hospital? Or maybe the two Portuguese Kenna and I had seen by the vineyard had reported us. Someone could have even spotted us dumping the old man’s body, though they’d have to be better at tracking than Kenna to have tailed us that long.
But that really didn’t matter. What did matter was if they had tracked me, Kenna might have been followed too.
THE FIRST COURSE OF ACTION was to lose the tail. I stopped at a random pub to consider my options and called Kenna while I ordered a beer for cover.
No answer from Kenna. I sent her a text: Tail. That would say it all.
Why didn’t she answer?
Casually, I scanned the café. The men and women looked like natives, most of their faces bronzed dark by the sun, and their vague smiles reminded me of Dona Mafalda. There was no loud laughter or drunken behavior that typically punctuated these places in the evening, though the night was still young. Not one person appeared over fifty.
A trip to the pub in Portugal was sometimes a family endeavor, but this town seemed to take that to extremes. Children were at almost every table, sitting as docilely as their parents.
Exactly what we’d seen during our first walk through the town, only more accentuated in this environment. I cranked my neck to see if my tail was still out there. He was, and he was chatting on a cell phone.
Great. I wasn’t sticking around for his backup to arrive.
I downed the rest of my curequick-laced beer. Already I felt the buzz, soothing my jitters and enhancing my metabolism as it purged the alcohol from my system. Even without curequick, it was impossible for Unbounded to get inebriated with regular-strength alcohol, so at least I had clear senses going for me.
Outside, I jumped on my bike and started pedaling, wishing I’d taken the rental car. That reminded me of Kenna, who still hadn’t answered.
I steered down a road, through a narrow alley, and into a park at the center of town. The problem with the moped was that he could go anywhere I could. My only advantage was that I could choose where to stop running. I slowed and let him catch up to me in the park. Night had fallen in earnest now, and given the inevitable confrontation, I was glad for the cover of darkness.
I slipped off my bike, but I didn’t step away from it. The metal beneath my hands slowly heated. It wouldn’t be long before the tires and seat melted. Would he even notice?
I waited until the man approached. He was grinning, but the expression was nothing like the vacant smiles in the pub. It was knowing and cruel, taunting. He was taller than me by a foot, and his hair was light brown, his eyes blue. With those pale features, he was definitely not native.
“Can I help you?” I said in Portuguese.
He paused, obviously not expecting me to sound like I belonged.
“What were you doing snooping around my fields today?” His Portuguese was fast, but heavily accented. He was English by the sound.
“I’m here on vacation. It’s a lovely town.”
“We don’t get many tourists.”
No, because the whole town is nuts, I thought. “That’s too bad. It deserves more.” I meant that literally. Everyone here deserved more than what the Emporium conglomerate had in store for them.
He stepped off his moped, still not going for a weapon, but the gleam in his eyes told me I’d been made. Maybe he detected the scorn in my voice instead of the fear he was accustomed to hearing. I doubted it. He didn’t look that smart. More likely, his ability was combat and his instincts told him I was a serious threat.
I’d have to gamble on having the advantage of surprise. Otherwise, I might be the one roasted.
“So, what brings you to our town?” He jiggled the key to his moped in his left hand like a nervous tic.
“Your town?” It came out a half snort. “Oh, that’s right—you said the fields were yours. But you don’t sound native. How long have you lived here? A few months?”
His lips came together in a grimace that told me the poor baby imagined he had a decent command of the language.
Closer, closer, I thought at him.
He obliged, his right hand moving toward the gun he’d have hidden at his back. I couldn’t let him get too far.
Now. I released my grip on the bicycle.
The man instinctively put out his left hand to catch the handle where the rubber guard had long dripped to the ground.
His scream was instantaneous, as was the smell of searing flesh. Part of the handle bar came away, fusing with his hand. That he still managed to draw his gun said a lot about his skill and confirmed my suspicions about him being Unbounded. But the pain was too much even for him, and almost immediately, he curled over his wounded hand. The seat of the bike scraped his leg on the way down, smearing the hot remains of the padding and metal underneath.
His screams somehow grew louder. Definitely going to draw a crowd. My gun was already in hand, so I fired two shots into his torso. The screaming stopped.
Really, I’d done him a favor. If he was lucky, most of the damage caused by the molten metal would be healed before his heart started beating again. Dep
ending on how much curequick he might already have in his body.
Furtively, I scanned the park for movement, but no one was running in my direction or shouting. I heaved a sigh of relief. Except I couldn’t just leave him here. Even if no one stumbled on him tonight, he’d be found by morning when the women cut through the park on the way to Saturday market. The townspeople might be complacent, but they couldn’t ignore an apparently lifeless body in the middle of the walkway. But if I somehow managed to take him back to the villa, there was no guarantee I could find and destroy his tracking chip before his comrades found him.
A greater concern was Kenna.
The thought of her decided me. For now, this guy could wait in the bushes. They were a little too sparse to hide much during the day but were adequate by night. It took only fifteen seconds to drag him to the densest area.
The bicycle was useless, but the moped was a better choice anyway. I ran to it, nearly colliding with a dark figure. At once my hands burned with readiness, my gift eager to be used. I reached out.
And stopped.
It was the old guy Kenna and I had seen earlier in the park. He stood in front of me dressed in a dark coat that draped on his thin frame. His gray hair was slightly askew, his face brushed with a day or two’s growth of stubble.
How much had he seen?
Protocol indicated that I incapacitate him so he wouldn’t jeopardize the op, but he looked just like my short, wizened grandpa, and there was no way I was going to punch him, or even drug him. For all I knew, I would accidentally kill the only aged person in the entire town.
“Keep quiet,” I told him. “The whole town is at risk. I’m trying to fix it.”
His dark eyes glittered in the moonlight, his face expressionless. He didn’t reply but looked past me right at the bushes.
I was screwed.
Nothing I could do about it. Jumping onto the moped, I prepared to flee. Where was the stupid key? Belatedly I remembered it in the Emporium agent’s left hand. No doubt it was part of the fused mess of my bicycle now.
The old guy was still watching me.
“Do you have a car?” I demanded.
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