Crap! I’d never been very good at throwing knives. I needed my backup .380 Ruger, but it was on my right calf, which made it awkward to grab with my undamaged left hand. More bullets plastered the ground. I scuttled backward, falling to my seat. Crab walking with one hand, past the fallen man toward the pile of logs. Finally, I managed to get out my spare gun. Only six shots. Without coming fully to my feet, I dived behind the logs and began shooting. More shots alerted me that similar battles were taking place out of my sight. I hoped we were winning.
My opponent abruptly ceased firing, though I doubted it was because of anything I’d done. I started to climb to my feet, but the crunch of brush from behind sounded as loud as a shout. I froze and looked around to see a man looming over me, his gun pointed at my face.
Great.
His gaze flicked to the large man sprawled on the other side of the logs and then back to me. His thoughts came to me jumbled and angry, images that spanned our different languages. As his stream of thoughts moved rapidly past me, I realized the fallen man was his brother. I saw flashes of the people they’d killed, women they’d raped, one only a child whom they’d later sold to militants. One thing for certain, he was going to pull the trigger. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt, and it’d stop me from helping Stella.
I lashed out. White fire to his mind. At the same time I lunged toward him, grabbing at the knife on his waist. No, not a knife. Longer and thicker. A machete. I fumbled getting it out. Wasted precious seconds. His mind recovered, and his finger started to press the trigger. I jabbed out with the machete.
Warm blood spurted over my hand as he curled toward me. I pushed him away, pulling the machete from his stomach in case I needed to use it again. The gun in his hand jerked but the shot went wide. Another shot rang out from somewhere behind me. My opponent stiffened, his gun falling to the brush. He breathed in wetly, his eyes wide and staring as he stood there, not understanding yet that he was dead. At last he fell, not gracefully or silently, but like a stiff log thumping onto rocky ground. I stood there for what seemed an eternal moment watching him, feeling the uselessness of a wasted life.
Ritter appeared at my side so silently that I hadn’t heard him approach. “Don’t ever, ever hesitate,” he growled. “You’re lucky he missed, and I didn’t.” He didn’t ask if I was okay, for which I was grateful, but his eyes ran over my body, searching for wounds. He took my injured hand, but already the throbbing had diminished.
“It’ll heal faster with stitches,” Ritter said. “I can do it.”
“Jace?”
“He’s fine. Keene, too. He’s good, even for a mortal.” The grudging admiration in his voice might have had me mocking him in another setting. His eyes fell to the machete, which he took from my hand and cleaned first on a plant and then on the pant leg of the fallen man. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It’s very old.” He untied the leather scabbard from its previous owner and handed it to me. “You earned it.”
I took it numbly and secured it around my waist, the decorative grass strands on the scabbard splaying over my jeans. Maybe I wouldn’t keep the machete, but it felt wrong to leave the weapon behind. I never wanted any man to use it against innocents again.
Jace strode into the clearing. “Any idea who these guys are?”
Time to go back to work. I strode to the big man I’d shot earlier. He was still alive, as I would have explained to his brother, given the chance. Kneeling beside him, I placed my good hand on his temple. Jace knelt beside me.
I found the lake of the man’s unconsciousness and dived deep, searching his memories. Bypassing the ugly memories, especially the ones containing women or children. There it was. The young Mexican from the airport. I swam to the top and opened my eyes.
“It was the young guy from the airport. He told them our direction and that we were carrying valuable cargo. From what I could tell, they often pay him for information with the agreement that they won’t approach his airport or attack the people who land there while they’re nearby.”
“What about Chris?” Jace clenched his fists.
Ritter somehow held the first aid kit in his hands. “He’ll be fine. We haven’t paid the guy the second half of our fee.” He took out a needle and injected curequick into the back of my hand. It must have also contained anesthesia because I didn’t feel the four stitches he threaded through my skin. “There, good as new,” he said when he’d finished.
Keene came from the other side of the path, where he and Jace had tied up two of the attackers who’d survived the ambush. “I don’t know who has jurisdiction here, but I’m sure these guys are wanted for a lot of crimes.”
“We’ll have Ava call in a few favors to get officials to pick them up,” Ritter said. “Meanwhile, we’d better move these logs. Get that lazy Benito out here, would you? He has to pull his weight somehow.”
I went to retrieve my knives, easily finding two of the three, but I gave the last one up for lost. I’d have to restock from the supplies. As I strode toward the others to lend a hand, a soft whisper penetrated my thoughts. Stopping, I scanned the trees around us.
Nothing.
I pushed my mind out to the jungle, searching for the whisper. Still nothing. At least nothing within range. Maybe if I pushed harder, though my head already pounded.
Hello, what’s this? I’d found something—a whole lot of something. Whatever it was resembled the darker, one-with-nature life forces of the animals but was substantially larger. Human size.
“Erin, where’re you going?”
I ignored Jace’s call and continued past the blocked path and down the narrow dirt road. The jungle encroached on all sides, teeming with life and vegetation. I hadn’t gone far when I reached a Jeep hooked up to a trailer. On top of the trailer sat a large bamboo cage, and crammed inside were at least a dozen people, including a wizened man and a young woman with a babe in her arms. They looked beaten and starved. Only the ancient man stood as I came into view.
“Come quick!” I yelled, turning to see that Benito had already followed me, apparently his curiosity getting the best of him. He’d found a brown fedora somewhere, and I suspected he’d taken it from one of the bandits. It rode low over his eyes, making him look rather mysterious.
Pulling off several duffel bags, I jumped up on the back of the trailer. “It’s locked.” I thought about searching the bandits for the keys or maybe shooting the lock off, but I didn’t want to wait or risk hurting these people.
I pulled out the machete. The woman holding the baby gasped, her frightened eyes pleading. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “Benito, tell them I’m going to free them.”
Benito rattled off something in Spanish, and one of the men replied. Benito shook his head. “Sorry. They don’t speak Spanish exactly. I think I might have understood a word or two, but maybe not.”
I began working on the leather ties that held the door in place. The leather was tough, but the machete cut through with little effort. By the time I’d finished, Ritter, Jace, and Keene had arrived. I swung the door open and jumped down. For a moment, no one inside the cage moved. I reached out my thoughts, and received images of mistrust and fear.
After several silent moments, the old man hobbled to the door hesitantly, as if waiting for a trap. He spoke, and this time Ritter answered in the same musical speech. I turned and stared at Ritter. The old man shook his head and said something else now, and Ritter nodded.
“What’s he saying?” I asked. “What language is that?”
Ritter glanced at me. “It’s a Mayan dialect.”
“You don’t know Spanish but you know Mayan?”
“This dialect is commonly used in the villages near the prison compound. They were there long before the Spaniards came to the New World.”
That’s right. He’d been alive during the early years of American colonization. After his Change, he must have spent time in Mexico at the compound. That fit with his thirst for revenge. “So they’re
Mayans?”
“Actually, Maya,” Ritter said. “Most scholars use Mayan only in referring to their language.”
The more I learned about the world, the less I felt I knew.
Ritter’s eyes fell to the machete at my waist. “He also says the machete you freed them with has been in his family for hundreds of years. Those bandits took it from him.”
Naturally. The bandits wouldn’t want them cutting their way out of the cage. As I started to unloose the leather ties to return it to the wizened Maya, the man extended his hand and barked three words, ordering me to stop. I understood his intent, if not the words. This close, I could feel his thoughts swirling, easily discernible, yet not in the same way as a regular mortal—though mortal he definitely was. The difference was intangible, nothing I could explain. A definite signature. Like the animals, these people were close to the earth that gave them life.
“Really, I don’t want it,” I said, pushing out an image of me giving it back.
A darkness fell over the man’s mind, as if he’d erected a wall of granite between us. He spoke again, but I had no inkling of what he was saying. Before I could calculate the odds of a primitive native in a jungle being able to block me, Ritter spoke.
“He says it’s yours now, as payment for freeing them. He insists upon settling the debt. He says the metal is special, no longer forged, and that it will protect you in your long journey.”
So now I was supposed to believe in magic? Then again, why not? Magic could explain Unbounded abilities every bit as much as parapsychology and genetics. Besides, these primitive people believed a host of things that weren’t true. Come to think of it, so did a lot of modern people.
“Well, he got the long journey part right.” I inclined my head toward the old man. “Thank you.” Odd that I felt better about keeping the machete already. He returned my nod solemnly.
The other prisoners had left the cage and stood at the edge of the clearing. They looked tired and hungry, and I wondered if we had enough supplies to feed them. But already, they were easing into the jungle, disappearing before my eyes, as though becoming part of the growth around us.
Jace opened his mouth to protest, but I shook my head. “Let them go. They know the land. They’ll be fine now.”
“The bandits sell them to the militants as slaves,” Ritter said. “You probably saved their lives.”
Jace took a step toward me. “Hey, can I see that machete?”
“Later,” Ritter said. “We need to get going.”
“I’ll follow in their Jeep,” Keene said. “That way maybe once we hook up with your friends, I can head out to Palenque to warn the senator.” Keene looked at Ritter as he spoke, the words not quite a question.
“Good idea.” Ritter turned on his heel as Keene began unhitching the trailer from the Jeep.
Deciding I’d better check on Mari, I hurried back to the Pinz. To my relief, she was still inside, though no longer asleep. She sat on the bench gazing into nothingness.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’re almost there.”
No answer.
Ritter grabbed a sledge hammer from the tools we’d brought and started off again.
“Where are you going?” I asked. While I’d been freeing the prisoners, the men had cleared the logs enough that we should already be able to pass.
“To take care of that cage.” His eyes met mine, leaking emotion I couldn’t sense from his blocked mind. “You and Jace bring the Pinz and meet me there.”
Taking care of the cage. He was right, of course, which meant that maybe I didn’t have to worry about him being so focused on revenge that he would endanger the mission. If he could think about destroying the cage in an effort to prevent more slave-runners from taking advantage of it, his head was on straight.
So what did that say about us?
Probably nothing. Trust had to go both ways, and I still wanted to know about those missing months. But right now I had to focus on Stella and finding that research.
“Come on, Jace,” I said. “Hurry up, or I’ll drive.”
THE NIGHT GRADUALLY THICKENED UNTIL I felt I’d never experienced darkness before. The rumble of the engine drowned out the mysterious calls and growls emanating from the jungle, but I knew the wild animals were out there watching us. Something followed us for several miles. Probably a jaguar, according to Ritter.
Mari sat at the end of our bench, wedged in behind Ritter’s seat, with her knees up to her chest and her arms around them. She looked forlorn. Every time I tried to touch her, I experienced a range of emotions that left me wanting to vomit. There were so many things I wanted to ask her, especially about her ability, but she was in no condition to respond, much less make any sense.
When Benito had seen how quickly the wound in my hand was healing with the curequick, he’d crossed himself several times, and when Jace had slowed down over some thick brush encroaching upon the road, he’d leapt out of the Pinz to ride with Keene. I wasn’t offended. Much.
Less than thirty minutes later, Cort and Dimitri appeared abruptly in front of the Pinz, and Jace nearly ran them over before Ritter ordered him to stop. It was near six o’clock, a mere two hours after our initial landing and less than eighty-five minutes since we’d left the plane. It seemed much longer.
Cort Bagley stepped forward as I jumped out the back to meet them, his piercing blue eyes locking onto my face. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Glad you made it in one piece,” he said, enveloping me in a hug. “There are some nasty bandits in these parts.” He had short, muddy brown hair and was of average height for a man, slightly taller than Dimitri. His face was ordinary, almost nerdy, but like all Unbounded, the self-assurance he exuded made him attractive, although I considered him another brother. I hadn’t realized how I’d missed him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bandits. Who knew?” I left him to greet the others and turned to Dimitri.
Dimitri Sidorov had lived over a thousand years and was by far the oldest of the Unbounded in our immediate group. A short, broad man with longish dark brown hair, a mustache, and intense brown eyes, he exuded an animal attractiveness. Like Cort, he dressed in dark canvas pants and a T-shirt, but his clothing looked somewhat more attractive on him, as if the style had been designed for his breadth. Lately it had been other, less noticeable things about him that fascinated me: the wide oval shape of his eyes, his narrow nose, the way his jaw twitched when he was forced to confront something he wanted to reject. These were traits I shared with my birth father.
He hugged me like he meant it. Though he’d never been a real father to me, he was one of the most thoughtful and considerate Renegades I’d met. Perhaps it was the bedside manner he’d cultivated over his years as a physician. Perhaps it was all the women he’d loved and buried. Perhaps it was because he was in love with Ava and didn’t yet seem to know it.
“How’s Ava doing?” he asked. With the attack and everything that was going on, he meant.
I shrugged. “She’s Ava.”
He chuckled. “Right.”
Beyond him, Cort was talking to Keene. There was a strong familial resemblance, and I wondered how their father felt, being a member of the Emporium Triad, to have two sons defect—especially Cort, an Unbounded who shared his ability in science. Maybe he had so many children it didn’t matter.
“Look, we’ve brought Mari,” I told Dimitri. “There’s something wrong with her. She was there at the attack, and she saw her husband after he’d been killed.”
“He can look at her as we go,” Ritter said. “We need to catch up to those Emporium agents.”
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to track them in the dark.” Cort detached himself from his brother and walked toward us. “The good news is they won’t be able to go far, either. They had a Jeep, same as us. Even with headlights, there’s no way they can continue safely on this terrain, unless they’re heading to a main road, and that’s not the direction they were going. My guess is they’ll make camp. They
can’t have more than forty-five minutes on us. Unfortunately, we have more to worry about than just the research and the man they took.”
Ritter’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“It’s better you hear it from the research scientist, the one we found. I’m still not sure how the whole thing works.” It was an admission many Unbounded might not make, but Cort didn’t need any false confidence.
“Bring the scientist,” Dimitri told him. “The rest of you can begin setting up the tents. I want to look at Mari.”
Though a part of me was as anxious to get going as Ritter, I was relieved that he’d examine Mari now. The image of her vacant face never left me.
As we approached the back of the Pinz, my brother’s voice carried to us, softer than I’d ever heard it. “It’s going to be all right, you know. All of this is a shock, but you’re special, and you’ll be doing things many people only wish they could do.” A pause. “I’m really sorry about your husband, that you found him that way. And I’m sorry for what he did to you. Not all men are like him. There’s a lot you can trust. Dimitri, for one. He’s the doctor. And Cort, and Chris, and . . . and me.”
I lifted up the tarp opening to find Jace sitting next to Mari, a flashlight in his hand. “You left her in the dark,” he told me.
In my rush to bring Dimitri to Mari, I hadn’t even considered the dark or how being alone might affect her. That Jace had been sensitive enough to remember Mari told me he was finally growing up a little.
“The dark might actually be soothing.” Dimitri swung himself up. “As long as she feels safe here.” He stepped over several bags as Jace relinquished his seat next to Mari.
Ritter appeared at the back of the Pinz as I climbed inside, reaching for the duffels holding the tents and tossing one to Keene. With a pitying glance at Mari, they both disappeared.
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