“What’s wrong?” Castile asked. “You look sick or something.”
“No. Aspen just woke me.” Hawk combed his beard with his fingers and eyed Trinidad. “There’s something wrong with your priest.”
Trinidad fell deadly still. He turned his head to look at Castile. “Father Troy? Here?”
Castile nodded, caught. “I didn’t get a chance to—”
“You brought him here?” Flat. Lethal.
“He’s a friend. I would never let anything happen to him. He’s fine—”
Trinidad slid his sword into his scabbard with a sharp hiss. “He’s not fine. He’s sick. And you’ve probably just killed him.”
THIRTEEN
Trinidad knew the way without thinking. He fastened his cloak as he went, heart hammering his ribs. He made a cursory note of two Wiccan soldiers hanging about in the main part of the cave, bristling with knives and rifles. Awake at such a late hour and positioned where they’d do little good against external attack, they had to be due to his presence. A third soldier leaned against a cavern wall, rifle resting on her shoulder. She pushed herself off her wall and tagged along behind them.
Wooden structures leaned against the walls, doorways were covered by curtains made of various materials or real doors when the owner had salvaged one and hinges to hang it with; smoke tunneled up through chimneys to blend with the clouds and ash in the open air of the canyon.
In what must have been Hawk’s house, Father Troy reclined against cushions, eyes closed and looking pale. His wrinkled hands were balled into fists. He looked old and frail. Trinidad felt like he hadn’t seen him for weeks, not hours. This morning, he reminded himself. It had just been since this morning. A woman sat on her knees next to him, pregnant belly filling her lap. Trinidad recognized her freckles and sharp profile from childhood. Her name was Aspen.
Trinidad dropped to one knee next to Father Troy. “Father? I’m here.”
“Thank God, Trinidad, you’re all right.” His voice was breathless and raspy, but he took Trinidad’s hand in his weak one.
Pain obviously strained his dying body and struggling heart. The doctors had warned him not to go too long between treatments, and he was already a week late. “I told you not to put off your dose.”
Father Troy squeezed his hand. “Don’t nag, son.” Just those few words left him breathless.
“I have to get him back inparish now,” Trinidad said to Castile. “He needs to be in the hospital.”
Castile shook his head. “You can’t go back now. Not after you … not after everything that’s happened.”
“I’m not going to let him die in this cave.”
“But we need you here—”
“Castile,” Hawk said.
Castile spun. Though Hawk met his gaze with a mild expression, Castile lowered his chin. “My lord.”
Trinidad’s gaze flicked between the two and his lip curled. But he bit back a retort. Arguing wouldn’t get Father Troy to the hospital any quicker.
“I’m going to get a litter and Castile, you will take them back,” Hawk said. “I agreed to let you bring Trinidad and the priest here, but we can’t let Father Troy lie here in pain when something can be done about it.” Hawk turned to the woman who had followed them, muttering orders. “Magpie, run out and prepare the dray.”
Magpie crossed her arms and balanced her weight evenly on both feet. Another fighter, Trinidad noted. She’d been really little when he’d left the coven. Beneath his notice.
“Go, Mags. I’m not asking,” Hawk said.
Magpie raked them all with her glare, dropped a haughty chin to her brother, and shoved through the curtain. Hawk headed for the curtain as well.
“I’ll take him inparish,” Castile said to Trinidad. “You stay here.”
Trinidad started to draw his sword. “Let me go or die trying to keep me here. Your choice.”
Aspen laid her hand on Trinidad’s arm. “No one is killing anyone today. We’re all doing everything we can—” Her breath caught. She hunched over with a moan and reached out. Trinidad let his sword slide back into its scabbard in order to catch her by the hand. He lowered her to the ground, supporting her weight as best he could.
“My lady?” Castile took a step forward. “What’s wrong?”
“Contraction,” she hissed. She ground Trinidad’s finger bones together and didn’t say anything for several seconds. At last she released him. Her voice was strained, breathless.
“Let Trinidad go with his priest, Cas. But don’t go inparish. Swear to me you won’t go inside. It’s too dangerous.”
“Done. We take him only as far as the wall,” Castile said. He narrowed his eyes at Trinidad. “And you’re not going inparish with him either.”
Trinidad frowned, but found no point in arguing it out now. He could better manage Castile away from the coven.
Father Troy rubbed Trinidad’s knee. “Are you all right, son? I heard they almost … killed you.”
Trinidad’s shoulders stiffened. It wasn’t all right. Nothing would be right again, not since he’d killed Paul. Castile was right. How could he go back inparish? They would imprison him, execute him. But he couldn’t just run, either. He bowed his head. “Father. Paul and I—”
“Later,” Castile said, sharp.
Hawk shoved the doorway curtain aside and dragged a litter inside. Aspen straightened and wrapped the blanket closer around her. A sheen of sweat slicked her pale face.
“Problem?” Hawk laid the litter down next to Father Troy but looked at Trinidad.
Trinidad thought fast. If he was surrounded by Wiccans, he’d never get away, he’d never get inside parish walls. And whatever Castile said, he would never trust Hawk.
He forced a polite tone. “Stay with your wife, my lord. She’s in labor.”
Hawk held for a moment, brows raised at Aspen. “Labor?”
“I’m fine.” She wiped away a strand of hair stuck to her sweaty brow.
Trinidad cleared his throat. “When Israel was born, Papa said the baby was getting close when Mother about broke my hand during a contraction. Like you just did.”
Castile glared at him. “We can’t go with just the two of us.”
“I’ll go,” Magpie said from the doorway.
Aspen grimaced as another contraction overtook her. She sank to her knees. They waited it out for several seconds in silence until she looked up. Trinidad’s blood roared in his head. They didn’t have time for this. They had to get Father Troy back.
“No. Not you, Magpie,” Hawk said. “Someone else.”
“You swore to me,” Magpie said. “You swore you’d treat me like any other soldier.”
Hawk frowned. Castile pressed his lips together in a scowl and shook his head.
“It’s safe for me to go. I have no record. They have no reason to hold me. I can get in and out without any trouble. Not like the rest of the coven.”
Castile’s fingers tightened into fists. “You have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“Ahh,” Aspen moaned. “Goddess spare me, just go, the lot of you!”
“All right, Magpie. Go with him.” Hawk cast another unreadable glance at Trinidad before turning to his wife.
Castile said, “You follow my orders. To the letter. Understand?”
Magpie gave a saucy salute and helped Trinidad arrange Father Troy on the litter. The priest didn’t stir much. Trinidad felt his forehead. Clammy and cold.
Trinidad tried to focus on keeping the litter steady rather than on the shallow rise and fall of his priest’s chest. He smelled the ash from outdoors and acrid sick-sweat from the priest combining with the sour scent of tallow burning. He realized the Barren might have been the only place he’d ever been where he could not scent ash and death on the air.
As they reached the grotto, Trinidad slowed without meaning to. The altar laid with sweet-smelling beeswax candles and holy items, the faint glow of oil torches, the scuffs on the cavern floor marking where three genera
tions of Wiccans had laid Circles. It all was the same. His own father had once taken the Hunter Aspect, horned head menacing and thrilling as he danced …
Castile took the litter and sent Magpie scuttling ahead to ready the dray. He spoke low and hard to Trinidad, dragging him back from the memory. “Don’t think I missed what you did back there, getting Hawk to stay behind. But I’m still holding you to our oath. No matter what happens, we hold the Barren and we stop the crusade. You’re in it as deep as me now.”
FOURTEEN
Bishop Marius learned Father Troy was unexpectedly missing and that Trinidad and Daniel had disappeared as well, supposedly gone off with him. Seth had been nervous explaining it to her, but she did her best to ease his fears of foul play. That they hadn’t alerted the rest of the archwardens as to their whereabouts caused her no particular worry. Surely it was a misunderstanding. Seth was silent and grim in response. She retreated to safety in her basement room and waited, praying and doing some planning.
But she had learned over the years that archwardens rarely fetched her in the night with good news. So, when someone knocked on her door, dread fell like a stone in her stomach. She rose from her desk and opened the door. Seth waited for her.
“Did you find them?”
“No. No news there.” He paused. “We went to find Paul to ask him to help look, but …” Staring past her, at attention, the tattoo on Seth’s pale brow creased, betraying his strain. “He’s dead, Your Grace.”
The rock in her stomach ruptured into a familiar void. She drew a breath to steady her voice. It came husky and rough. “What happened?”
“We knocked and tried his door. It was locked. We broke in and found him … stabbed.”
“Stabbed,” she whispered, stiffening her weak knees against toppling.
He held out a hand as if to catch her. She didn’t take it.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Seth shook his head. “I don’t understand how this could have happened. The door was locked from the inside and the window is too small for anyone to fit through.”
She understood, all too well. “Take me to him.”
Seth turned and led the way down the cold basement corridor, the parish archwarden Malachi and a couple of her own men following her. An exorbitant guard detail, but they wouldn’t take any chances with what they now considered was an abduction of their priest and two archwardens, and now a murder. Two veteran archwardens flanked Paul’s door, in full armor kit complete with decorations of honor and black cloaks despite the hour. One opened the door and bowed his head, granting her entrance. The Order of Archwardens dealt with their dead with stoic conduct in public. Raw grief was for private, away from their priests—under cover of darkness with brothers and alcohol.
She took a step forward and then raised a hand as they made to follow.
“Alone.” She paused. “A few moments. I must pray.”
They bowed their way out and latched the door softly behind her.
Cold silence pervaded the air, as it did when a room held a lifeless body. Paul had been sleeping on his side. Blood had pooled in his cheek and temple. They’d since turned him on his back and covered him with his crusader’s cloak. His naked sword lay under his hands, aligned with the crimson cross embroidered on the black drape of fabric, blade pointed toward his feet. His face hung slack, lips slightly apart. His lashes lay quiet on his cheek.
She walked forward, careful to make no noise, and touched him, slid his hand between hers. The same long fingers, hardened from life as a fighter, as cold as the room. All the warmth had faded from his body. And his damned tattoos, also fading … he couldn’t go on like that, couldn’t go into the ground like that … she sucked in a hiss of breath.
She shifted the cloak and found the gash from a sword under his ribs, a savage stab wound, direct to the lung. He’d been laid on clean bedding and the blood was gone. Stark white sheeting underscored the viciousness of the wound. The murderer had twisted the blade, ensuring death.
Wiccan ecoterrs had brought their war to Christ’s doorstep when they’d murdered her child and the war was still on. Trembling overcame her and she leaned over Paul, pressed her cheek against the cold steel of his sword and his motionless hands. She tangled her fingers in the prayer beads wound around his wrist.
“What must I do to prove my faith to You, Lord?” she whispered. “Who else will You take?”
She twisted the prayer beads and the cord snapped. The wooden beads sounded like far-off gunfire as they hit the concrete floor. She scrambled for them but only caught a few before the rest rolled away into shadowed corners. Sometime later, she found herself kneeling on the floor, arms wrapped around her stomach, listening to the silence.
She rose and straightened her back, thinking, For we walk by faith, not by sight. Stupid to have expected an answer. She had to prove herself to God, not the other way around. With shaking hands, she straightened the cloak over Paul’s still form, patting his stiff chest, not sure how to comfort a dead man. She jerked her hand away. Paul wasn’t here any longer, just like her son hadn’t been there as she’d cradled his limp little body. They were with God now. Her son sat at His left hand as a martyr, and now Paul had joined them. He would watch over her little boy in Heaven as he had always watched over her on Earth. That would please Paul, no doubt. Such service always had.
Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And with the shield, a blade.
Grief fell away into nothing and her mind stilled. God stole it away, as He always did. There was His answer and with it, her charge to prove herself yet again. Death was ever a challenge from Him, as it had been since those first deaths, since her son.
Her vision blurred, not with tears, but from a hard stare. The door had been locked. No one had entered and killed Paul in this room. Only one place he could have died. The Barren. Only one real suspect. The Wiccan, Castile. But why? And, most of all, how would she make him pay?
FIFTEEN
Rust ate at every edge of the coven dray and its door hinges creaked like screaming banshees. The refitted meshed windows were pocked and cracked. Pebbled steel and polymer sheeting armored it, and it stunk from the burning trash it ran on. Solid, run-flat tires gave a ride that jolted the teeth from your head.
Trinidad sat in back next to Father Troy, who appeared mostly unconscious. Once they escaped the valley unseen and were nearing Dragonspine, Castile glanced back at him. Trinidad pulled the clip from an old Savage rifle to count bullets. He gave Castile a dark look.
“That’s the best gun we’ve got,” Castile said from the driver’s seat. “If you have a problem with it, you can carry your priest home over your shoulder.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Trinidad said.
“You didn’t have to.”
Magpie sat in the passenger seat next to Castile, eyes fixed forward. He ignored her. She’d managed to wrangle her way onto this little jaunt, to impress him or win his heart or some damn thing. She didn’t know how risky going inparish would be for Castile, or she’d be arguing the whole way. Thank the Trine for small favors.
Castile pushed the old dray as fast as it could go. They drove in a stiff, heavy silence, enduring the cold and jolting without further comment, for nearly an hour. Ash floated on the clouds of their breath. Castile never thought he’d be relieved to see the glow from Boulder Parish, white spotlights looking like pearly clouds by the ash on the air.
“That’s a roadblock up ahead,” Magpie said as Castile squinted, seeing the same thing as she spoke. Old kegs and a lot of slavers, armed with rifles and torches, painted up for battle.
Trinidad crawled forward to lean over the seat. The archwarden’s warm breath made Castile’s neck tingle as Trinidad leaned close to peer through the windshield. “They can’t be out this far with no transportation.”
“Drays behind us, I’m sure,” Castile said. “It’s a trap.”
Slavers drove slick armored drays and wielded hea
vy firepower financed by the trade in other American regions and Mexico. The skull sigils of Santa Muerte decorated their armor. Multi-hued paint distorted their faces. Slavers didn’t usually bother with roadblocks. They had sophisticated infiltration techniques and people inparish to do their bidding. When those provisions failed, they used blunt force. Despite the parish’s best efforts, little kids disappeared into the slave trade every day.
This was all wrong, all wrong, though. Castile cursed silently and then aloud. “Fuck. Why are they here, now?”
Trinidad shifted away, leaving a cold spot on Castile’s skin. He said it as Castile thought it: “Somebody tipped them we were coming.”
More cursing, though he kept it to himself. Reine d’Esprit. That Indigo bitch had pulled favors with her slaver contacts to get them killed. He didn’t know how or why Reine had embedded herself with the Christians, but he had no doubt she was at the bottom of this ambush.
“You’re slowing down,” Magpie said. Her voice broke and she cleared her throat.
Artemis, give her strength to shoot. “The barrels are weighted. Got to bully our way through. Brace yourselves and when I say go, make every shot count.” He looked over his shoulder. “Steady back there?”
In answer, Trinidad chambered a bullet and slipped the barrel of the rifle through a hole drilled in the armored plating. His face hardened to stone. He looked like he’d forgotten all about the unconscious priest at his side.
Sickness ached deep in Castile’s belly. From his first day in prison, he’d met a lifetime’s worth of people who could kill without regret. For them, efficient brutality was a way of life. Very little of his childhood friend was left in this man who had become a Christian archwarden.
Trinidad held his gaze for a moment that seemed to stretch into minutes. “Just drive, Castile.”
Castile turned back to the barrels. The slavers shouted and waved rifles. No shots yet. Only a matter of time.
Magpie rested her rifle on the dash, the barrel jammed in a drill-hole. The red moon slipped out from behind a cloud and cast a bloody hue over the scene.
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