by Ann Aguirre
“Está bien.” She gazed at me, probably gauging how much she could ask. Since I was wearing jeans and a pullover, I didn’t look affluent. The backpack made me look like a traveler on a budget. She decided on, “Cuarenta.”
To my vast relief, Kel produced a couple of orange bills from one of the pockets in his pack; it wasn’t as pretty as any of the Mexican banknotes. I read the currency as he passed it over. Holy crap, we were in Peru; I managed not to let my shock show. Looking as if she felt better already, the woman led us down the hallway to the stairs.
They were narrow and dark as we climbed, but the house smelled fresh and clean. Plain wood floors needed no other adornment. On the third floor, she paused and opened a door near the stairs. The room was spartan and contained nothing other than a chair and a full-size bed. I presumed the door in the wall was a closet.
“The bathroom is over there.” She pointed down the hall. “Shared, but I have no other guests on this floor tonight.”
Good to know.
After informing us where to find towels and that breakfast would be served at eight a.m., she hurried out. I closed the door and turned the bolt. Since our room faced the street, I headed over and closed the curtains as well. It made the room seem even smaller—and it wasn’t large to start with—but I could deal. I told myself it was cozy, seated myself in the chair, and rummaged through the backpack.
I found five hundred nuevos soles, a map, and five pairs of clean underwear. Ew. How long did he expect this to take? If Escobar’s estimate was accurate, I’d be wearing these same clothes for almost a week. I had socks too, and hiking boots. When I glanced up, I found Kel studying me.
After opening the map, with a fingertip I traced the black ink path that had been drawn. “It looks like we’re supposed to head into the jungle from here.”
“Up the river.”
I checked the scale and swore. “That’ll be a hell of a hike.”
It was a good thing Escobar had provided me with boots, but breaking in new footwear by wearing it for miles at a time was a crappy idea. Not like I had anything else. Everything I owned had been blown to shit, along with Señor Alvarez, who hadn’t wanted to look after the shop for me this time. I’d known he didn’t, and instead of closing the place, I’d made him an offer too sweet to refuse—fifty percent commission on anything he sold. The paper crumpled in my hands.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t set the bomb, but I put him there in my place.” Much as I appreciated the effort, I wouldn’t be letting myself off the hook anytime soon.
Doubtless sensing I wouldn’t be swayed, he changed the subject. “Did you find a pendant in your bag?”
I dug into the pack once more and found the necklace wrapped in tissue in a side pocket. Kel was already wearing his. When my fingertips brushed the metal, they singed, but it was like catching the embers of a fallen star, unexpected and magical. Images whispered in my mind’s eye, showing me glimpses of the pretty young woman who had woven a protective spell on this medallion as if she were twining summer roses in her hair. Watching her I couldn’t help but smile, despite our circumstances, and I dropped the leather cord around my neck.
“Saint Christopher,” I said.
“Patron saint of travelers.” His eyes were gray and grave, quiet like clouds gathering the strength for snow.
“Is that all true? The saints and miracles.”
“I don’t know. I’m not Catholic.”
Again, the hint that angels and divinity lay outside the purview of organized religion. Oh, how his secrets intrigued me.
“This is meant to hide us, isn’t it? Keep us from Montoya’s sorcerer.” Pity no such spell lasted forever. I could quietly disappear. But crossing Escobar would be suicide, as that move would leave me with two cartel bosses on my back.
“It is.” He turned from me abruptly. “You should sleep.”
“I suppose you don’t?”
If that was the case, I should get off the chair, because he’d be sitting on it all night. Pity it wasn’t padded, but the room didn’t lend itself to such extravagance. There were no rugs, nothing that could be stolen or broken. Fortunately, I found the sheets clean, if slightly threadbare, when I turned down the bed. The gold and brown spread echoed the warmth of the wood, so the room was charming in its simplicity.
I’d almost forgotten the question by the time he answered, “I sleep.”
There was no reason to make this complicated; most of the time, he didn’t even seem to like me, so it wasn’t as if I had to worry about unwelcome advances.
“Then do. We’re safe, and it’s hard to know when we’ll see a bed again.”
In an economical motion, I peeled out of my jeans. I removed my bra in a tricksy maneuver without taking off my shirt and slid beneath the covers. I rolled over on my side, giving him the choice to take the chair or climb in behind me. He moved around for a little while, and then he switched off the light. Eventually the mattress dipped with his weight.
“Are you certain you’re not frightened?”
I thought about that, lying in the dark. Impossible question. I was afraid of what I might do in order to survive. I was afraid of the thing Escobar had sent me to find and the pain of reading it. I feared harm coming to my friends as a result of my bad choices. Hell, if I was honest, the idea of going out into the jungle scared the shit out of me too.
“I am. Of course I am. But you’re the least terrifying part of this.”
“It has been . . . long since I heard such. I’ve not been tasked with protection for many years.”
“You slay and move on,” I guessed.
I felt him nod. The pillow rustled, and I braved a look over my shoulder at him. He lay on his back, hands beneath his head. “They called me that, too, once.”
Slayer. Sword. Wrath. Those were old words. A shiver rolled through me. I admitted to myself that Hand of God sounded less fearful.
“If I asked how old you are, would you tell me?”
“Are you asking?”
I eased over onto my back, deciding it was rude to talk without looking at him. “I’m curious.”
“Older than the sands . . . and new like fresh-minted coins.”
“That’s no answer,” I muttered.
“Sleep now.”
Perversely, I didn’t want to, even though I knew it was sensible advice. The morning would come fast, and with it, unbelievable hardship. On a whim, I reached over and put my palm on his chest. He’d removed his button-down while I was facing away, leaving only the undershirt. Relief coiled through me when I felt the reassuring thump of a beating heart. I pulled my hand away, but not before he levered up on one elbow to stare at me, his tats kindling blue in the darkness.
I shrugged away his reaction. “I needed to know.”
“What?”
“How real you are.”
“Enough to think on things I can’t have,” he said softly. “Good night, Corine.”
Welcome to the Jungle
As it turned out, we didn’t have the same things in our packs. Kel had protein bars and other survival gear. Just as well—I wouldn’t have known what to do with most of it. We bought water first thing and headed out. I remembered Escobar saying it would take mental acuity to locate the item he wanted—and had told me squat about—so it seemed unlikely the map would lead us straight to it.
We attracted some looks on our way out of town, but nobody interfered with us. Whispers followed as we went. I didn’t look back.
A dirt track led toward the trees. I followed Kel, watching where I stepped, even though the real dangers began once we entered the long, green shadows. The air smelled mossy, rich with new growth. I felt particularly alien here, where the trees tangled together, and I didn’t recognize them.
Kel led the way. Soon the path we followed devolved into a nearly impenetrable wall of green. He drew a machete and went to work hacking our way to the river. I heard the water before I saw it
. From there we headed north.
Roots grew thick and bumpy beneath the thin earth, creating a tiered path beside the river. The soil sank with each step, and the bugs swarmed me, biting like mad. I applied repellent Kel had in his pack, but it did a limited amount of good. Overhead, the canopy was so thick I could barely tell what time of day it was, apart from thin trickles of light filtered sickly green through the leaves. Animals prowled around us. I could hear them and smell them, but they seldom came into view. My arm hurt, but I didn’t whine about it; that never did any good.
Thus passed two of the worst days of my life. Between the bugs, heat, uncertainty, and exhaustion, it became everything I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. In the evenings, we camped in the open, made more miserable by the fact that it rained the second night. For countless moments, I lay listening to the jungle serenade, an endless drone, underscored with other insects whirring, chirping. The darkness amplified the noise, so that I could hear even the rain plinking on the leaves. Used to city sounds and tires on the street, I found it hard to sleep, and when I rolled over, damp and despondent in my light sleeping bag, Kel’s gaze met mine.
“You’re not used to this,” he observed.
“Are you?”
He considered. “Not any longer. In years past, I knew much worse.”
“You weren’t always God’s Hand?” It seemed unlikely he would answer, yet I couldn’t deny my curiosity.
“I came from humble beginnings. . . . I was a foot soldier. It took me a long while to earn my current title.”
I wondered what constituted a long while to him. Sometimes as we’d walked, I surprised a peculiar expression on his face. I didn’t know what to make of him, and something told me he didn’t know how to feel about me either. Maybe we were both guilty of prejudicial behavior.
“Do you think I have a chance?”
He was silent for too long. “I am tasked to see that you survive, and have chosen our course accordingly.”
My misery increased; I didn’t like being a job to him. Somehow it felt like hiring company for the night because nobody wanted to take you home. Further conversation could only upset me, and I didn’t need that, so I rolled over. Kel surprised me with a touch on my shoulder.
“Corine,” he whispered, beneath the rain, “I’d help you without orders now.”
Those words left me smiling. Soon enough, I slept; in the morning, we ate a couple of protein bars and continued on our way. It had been half a day since we’d seen other human beings, not that Kel counted. He was a capable companion, but I found his silence wearing. Since he didn’t complain, I was damned if I would. Instead I hugged his compliment to my chest and called myself ten kinds of fool.
As the day wore on, my muscles ached in places where I hadn’t known I had them, and sleeping on the ground left me with a bizarre kink in my neck. The new boots rubbed blisters through my socks, exacerbated by the salty sweat. I was afraid of taking them off; I might not be able to jam them back on my feet again.
In late afternoon, I stumbled behind Kel into a clearing. This was allegedly our destination, but I couldn’t see anything here that could be considered a clue. I spun in a slow circle. Dirt, rocks, vines. The trees rustled overhead, conjuring images of snakes slithering across the branches. Despite the heat, I shivered.
“We’re safe enough here,” he said, reading my body language.
Yeah, but for how long? These amulets functioned for a limited time, and then we’d flash back onto Montoya’s radar. If we were still out here in the middle of nowhere . . . Well, I could imagine few things worse. Fear prickled through me. Maybe Montoya had hired Escobar to take care of me; maybe this was an elaborate trap planned by two criminal minds.
Too late for second thoughts. I’m here.
I knelt and started going over the ground close up. There had to be something. While he stood guard, I crawled around for a good ten minutes, trying to hide how much my feet were bothering me. Near the western edge of the trees, I uncovered a clay statue, nearly hidden in the bush. The icon had markings on its feet.
“Our first clue?” Kel asked.
“I’m thinking so.” But I couldn’t read the symbols, nor did I recognize them. “This mean anything to you?”
He dropped down beside me. “Native writing.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Could be Quechua or Aymara, I guess, but there are a bunch of aboriginal languages.” Some of them were even extinct, which would make our task complicated.
“Can you handle it?” he asked.
“That was going to be my next move.” I laid my scarred left palm against the statue and it felt cool, quiet. Not so much as a ripple. “Nobody’s touched it enough to make an impression. What now?”
I was sure that was our clue, but without our being able to read the markings, it was impossible to say where we should go. The map gave no hint—the trail stopped here.
“We may as well make camp. I’ll look at your feet.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. I smell blood.”
A reflexive flinch surprised me, but I didn’t argue further. In the jungle, infection could set in if you weren’t careful, and I hadn’t been taking care of myself. I hoped if I ignored the problem, it would go away. No such luck.
Instead of arguing, I settled in the shadow of the trees, beside the clay statue, and unlaced my boots enough to slip them off. My heels stung like hell, and once I had the boots off, I saw the stains on my socks. I’d felt the warm trickle, of course, but I hoped it was the blisters popping. I took a deep breath to brace myself to remove the socks as well; it felt like I’d lost an inch of skin. I chanced a look, and damn. What a mess.
Instead of chiding me, Kel went to work cleaning my wounds. His hands were warm and sure. Such silent care summoned images of holy men who had been directed to go forth and tend to the lowest among them.
“Thank you,” I said when he was finished, though it seemed inadequate—as if I should not have permitted the attention.
“I am here to bear your pain, my blood for yours.” Sunlight filtering through the leaves shaded his face, but I thought I saw a glimmer of regret. For what, I couldn’t say.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a bad bargain. Nalleli seemed to think yours is valuable.”
“It is.” There was no false modesty in his tone, only intensity and purpose.
I wished I knew more about him.
I started to move away but he motioned me to stillness. Right, my feet were raw and they needed bandaging. He produced a knife and made a small cut across his palm. Too late I realized he’d meant it literally—I am here to bear your pain, my blood for yours. I tried to recoil, but he held me still, sealing the trickling wound against the worst of the damage.
A glorious heat filled me, as if I could fly, or simply float away. My whole body felt weightless and blasted with irresistible euphoria. Once, I’d done a little E, and this was a thousand times more powerful. I laughed—and the sound swirled into endless echoes. A distant roar came back, and I giggled over that too. Boneless, I didn’t struggle when he treated my other foot. The fizzing in my brain increased until the whole world sparkled, as if through a diamond rain.
“I’ll heal your arm too. Too much risk of infection out here.”
“That’s nice,” I mumbled.
The roaring got louder, or maybe it was my heart. I could feel him inside me, seeping into my cells with that fierce heat. Kel turned his face away from me and then he sprang to his feet.
“Stay here. Don’t move.”
Well, where would I go? Disjointed noise spun all around me, and I tried to track his movement, but he slipped and slid in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics. I blinked, trying to force the colors to die down, but no matter how I looked at him, I saw his body edged in silver and gold, crowned in a white light. But he hid darkness in his core, a tiny little knot of sorrow.
Wait—is he fighting? It was an animal, but so smeared in
red I couldn’t see. Images overlaid my vision, transparent and only half realized. More light. More shadow. Every tree and rock gained new dimension, as if I could see in a spectrum of color to which I’d been blind before. My eyes hurt with it, so I closed them and dropped my head on my knees. The world needed to stop now.
I felt his hands on my shoulders and I jerked. Not in pain, but because the power of him swam inside me. Before, I had no idea how strange he was—how alien—and now he felt too big to be crouched beside me, a force of nature rather than a person. He glowed like a sun.
“It will wear off soon.”
Blindly I reached out and fisted my hands in his shirt. There was no spark, reinforcing the fact that he wasn’t just a gifted human. “What did you do to me?”
“Just breathe.”
“You had wings,” I whispered. “Two of those scars on your back—you had wings once, raven dark, inky blue. When you flew, people crossed themselves and hid in their homes.”
Because I had hold of him, I felt the shudder that ran through him. “Now there is proof you are born of ancient kings. You saw too much. Such a small amount of my blood should not affect you so.”
“There’s no taking back what you’ve given me, Kelethiel.”
A low growl slid from him. “That name must not be spoken.”
“Keleth—”
He sealed his hand over my mouth, silencing me. “Name me not, unless you mean to bind or banish me.”
Some devil prompted me. I did the one thing I was sure would make him recoil: I moved my mouth in the faintest whisper of a kiss. He tasted of salt and copper, the hint of the blood he’d sacrificed for me lingering on his skin. My lips burned, his power seeping in through the dry cracks.
He did not withdraw, merely stared at me through narrowed eyes, as if I had transformed into a dangerous creature. His shoulders tensed, but he appeared to be appraising me in a way I could not measure. And then he moved his hand in increments of millimeters. Maybe it wasn’t his intention, but his withdrawal became a sweet torment of fingertips dragging over sensitive skin. I had never received a kiss that stirred me more than that furtive, forbidden caress.
