“Well, do whatever it takes to get him back,” I growled. “We’re down to three now, and we need everyone at full power.”
“I do my best, Mr. Wolfe.” He drew a flask and retired to his room.
I looked at Takara’s door, then lowered my voice to Rusty. “Could you get a security gate on this one as well?”
He scratched his right mutton chop and looked back at me uncertainly. “I mean, I could—”
“Good. Do it.”
“Is there a reason we’re locking her in her room?”
“We don’t know where she’s been for the last day. Or with what.”
“Ahh, you think she might be a …” He hooked two fingers and held them in front of his lips to resemble fangs.
“It’s just a precaution.”
He winked. “Gotcha.”
I wasn’t sure how much good a durable gate would do, given the mess Takara had made of the building back at the training compound. But at the very least we’d have some warning.
As Rusty set to work, I went into the office and sent a situation report to Sarah’s contact person, William Beam. I had yet to meet our interim director, but something told me he was by the book, just like Sarah. Maybe it was the name. I couldn’t imagine he’d respond with anything useful, which meant we were on our own. Good thing I’d grabbed that vampire.
Rusty was finishing the gate as I stalked past him. “So, bad day at the office?” he asked.
“Three casualties and a teammate whose god is hamstrung by fear issues. What do you think?”
“Yeah, bad day,” he decided, hustling to catch up to me.
“Might be one bright spot, though. We’ve got a hostage, someone who knows where the kids are being taken and who’s behind it.” Without Sarah to interpret, I would need to bring the mayor in to translate. But first I would soften up the vampire with some well-placed silver.
I seized the van’s rear door handle, opened it, and stared.
Rusty peered from under my arm. “Hostage? Do you mean that stinking cloud of smoke?”
I waved my arms at the putrid smoke billowing from the cargo hold. If the whole vampires-turning-to-mist thing was another myth, as Sarah claimed, then what in the hell was this? But as the smoke cleared, something began to take shape: a pile of bones in a pool of yellow swill.
“Looks like someone got vaporized,” Rusty said.
“And the vaporizer was probably the magic-user controlling him,” I muttered before ripping off a string of choice words. The magic-user had just ensured his vampire clown wouldn’t talk.
“Then why didn’t he just vaporize you guys?” Rusty asked.
I considered the question. It was a good one. Why sic vampires on us when the magic-user could have reduced us to bones and steaming juice, like he’d obviously done to Torpe? I remembered the harsh cough of exhaust and sulfurous smell as we’d crossed the drainage ditch. The sound hadn’t come from the exhaust, though. It had been the vampire going up in flames.
But when I considered where that had happened, a different realization hit me. “Torpe wasn’t vaporized by a wizard’s spell,” I said. “There’s some sort of ward or protective barrier running around El Rosario. That’s why the vampires can only operate outside of town.”
“Well, what about those dogs?” Rusty asked. “And the bull?”
“The barrier must not effect them. Maybe because they were animals.”
“Well then who left the note? Who stole the clown suits? If the—” Rusty stopped suddenly, eyes wide. Now it was his turn to have an epiphany. “Oh, shit. Follow me.” He turned and ran back into the compound.
I followed, closing and securing the door and gate behind us. “What is it?”
Instead of answering, Rusty went into the office and sat in front of the monitor showing the drone feeds. With a few mouse maneuvers, he brought up a recording in a second, smaller window. I leaned forward as he clicked for it to play. A drone’s camera zoomed in on a boy threading his way through the marketplace. I recognized him immediately.
“You found Nicho.”
Rusty nodded. “Only child without an adult escort, just like you said.”
“Where’s he going?”
“Keep watching.”
When Nicho reached the municipal building, he pulled a pair of work gloves from the waist band of his shorts and donned them. Then he retrieved something from his pocket and palmed it. Even with the camera’s resolution, I couldn’t make out what. He climbed the steps behind a small group of people and disappeared into the building. A half minute later he reappeared, hands empty. He threaded his way back through the market and entered another building.
“Spoiler alert,” Rusty said, “he doesn’t show up again. But shortly after he ducked in and out of the municipal building, the mayor called. She wanted to talk to you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “She sounded upset.”
I saw what he was getting at. “You think Nicho’s working for the bad guys?”
“Only one way to find out.”
I thought back to the boy we’d found in the forest. Other than his shock, I hadn’t picked up anything off about him. He’d looked, smelled, and acted the part, all the way up until he’d left with the police chief yesterday evening. But he had disappeared this morning.
“There’s no way,” I muttered, pulling my phone out to call the mayor.
“It’s Captain Wolfe,” I said when Mayor Flores answered.
“We’ve received another note, a threat, under the office door,” she said quickly.
“What time?”
“Just after ten o’clock.”
I signaled for Rusty to rewind the video. He nodded and brought the video back to the moment Nicho was entering the building. I looked at the feed’s digital readout. 10:04. Shit. The timing, the gloves, the thing he had pulled from his pocket…
“What does the note say?” I asked.
“It says that because we defied yesterday’s order, we are banished from El Rosario. Everyone must leave town by midnight. If we don’t, ‘El Rosario will fall into the black pit,’ it says. ‘And anyone remaining will suffer eternal torture.’” She paused to sniffle. “There aren’t enough vehicles to transport everyone, but the nearest town is thirty kilometers away. Those who are able could walk and still reach it by nightfall. But we would have to leave now.”
“No,” I said. “That’s exactly what they want you to do.”
I pictured black holes opening up in the road, pulling children inside. It was the whole “if we can’t get to them, we’ll force them to come to us” thing.
“But what about the black pit?” she asked.
“Everyone will be safer in town,” I said, thinking about the barrier.
“Are-are you sure?”
I changed the subject. “The boy who was here yesterday, Nicho. Was anyone able to track him down?”
“The police looked for him on their patrols, but never found him. Something strange happened, though. He told you he left his home two days ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, when one of our deputies drove to his village to tell his parents where he was, they became very emotional. They said that, yes, he went out to find the bull, but that was more than a month ago.”
“A month? And they never reported him missing?”
“They thought he’d gone to stay with his uncle’s family in another village. He’s done that before, when his father became angry with him. But they just learned he never turned up there.”
Meaning the magic-user had been using him.
“Has anyone seen the shaman?” I asked.
“I thought you were going to talk to him. Chepe wasn’t home?”
“We were attacked before we could get there. We suffered a few injuries, but we killed four of the vampires.”
“Thank God,” she whispered.
“But there’s still one remaining, and also a being who commands powerful magic.”
“It is not Chepe,” she said
. “I am telling you.”
I grunted. The peppery smell, the ambush on the road to his home … Too many coincidences for me to doubt his involvement. For a moment, I considered heading back into the mountains to confront him, but that would be stupid. I had no reliable backup, one. And two, the man wielded powers I couldn’t begin to understand. I needed to track down Nicho first. If he was working for the shaman, there was a good chance he could tell us something.
The building shook from a tremor like the one that morning.
“All right, listen,” I said to the mayor when the tremor passed. “No evacuations. Keep the people of El Rosario in town. We can better protect everyone here. I’ll call in a backup force if we need one.”
“O-Okay.”
“Will you be free later this morning.”
“I think so. What for?”
“I’m going to need a translator.”
20
The building where Rusty had last seen Nicho was a long colonnade on the south side of the market. I arrived at the colonnade through the thinning marketplace at a run. It had been more than an hour since the feed had captured Nicho going in, which was a long time.
“Just sped through the last thirty minutes of video,” Rusty radioed, as if on cue. “He never came out again.”
“All right, keep an eye on the live feed.”
I leaned my head back and opened my nostrils to the air flowing into my helmet. Boom. He was here—or had been recently. There were other scents like his, but this one was distinctly Nicho’s.
I walked up and down the colonnade, peering into the small ten-by-ten shops lining both sides. “Un niño?” I asked the occasional shopkeeper. A boy? To which they shook their heads. With my freakish size, I probably could have asked about an adult and gotten the same response, even though there were a good number of men and women out. Their swirling scents complicated my search.
I considered calling Nicho’s name, but a slight sourness to his odor told me he was hiding. I listened for the same rapid breaths I’d heard when we’d first found him in the woods, but there was too much noise. On my next pass, I waited for his scent to grow and then diminish again before stopping. To one side of me was an unoccupied store. On the other, a young woman was selling sandals.
“Un niño?” I asked her.
She shook her head, but not before her eyes made a small, unconscious movement past my legs. The colonnade featured a center thoroughfare and two raised sidewalks. When I turned, I found a grate set in the far curb. Beyond the rusted iron bars, a face ducked away.
He’s in the storm drain.
I lunged over, pulled the grate off, and plunged a hand in. I caught the boy by the ankle as he tried to scramble down a narrow tunnel. He shouted as I dragged him back out. Inverted, Nicho swung his fists at me, not coming close. Bits of garbage and rotting vegetable matter fell from his clothes.
“Nicho, es yo,” I said. “Captain Wolfe.”
Dammit, I don’t know enough Spanish to make him understand.
I turned to the young woman selling sandals. “Alcalde!” I said. Mayor!
She nodded quickly and ran to retrieve her. Pressure manifested in my palm. I turned back to find that Nicho had swung himself onto my arm and was biting my hand. Though his teeth had no chance of puncturing the glove, the savageness of the bite surprised me. I pulled back his head with my other hand. Cords leapt from his neck as he spit and snarled, but his teeth looked normal. No fangs.
Still, he’s nothing like the boy we found yesterday.
Had he been turned into a blood slave? His smell hadn’t changed, but maybe that took time. I shoved down all thoughts of having to destroy him. Regardless of what had happened to him, we’d find another way to bring him back. In the meantime I needed to get him someplace safe.
“Give him to me,” a voice said.
From the murmuring crowd that had gathered at the far end of the colonnade, an old man stepped forward. He wore dark pants that ended above his calves and a linen shirt with traditional patterns. Wispy gray hair fell from a long red bandana knotted around his head. His staff, which featured colorful feathers, suggested who he was. The peppery scent sealed it.
“The shaman,” I muttered, adjusting my grip on Nicho.
“Give him to me,” the old man repeated. His weathered face was hard to read, his blue eyes cloudy with cataracts. He angled his staff toward us suddenly. I drew my sidearm and aimed it at his head.
“Drop your staff,” I ordered.
His lips murmured around strange words as he held tight to his staff.
“Drop it!” I repeated.
I could feel powerful energy building in the enclosed space. Nicho, who had resumed chewing on my hand, now whipped his head toward the shaman. His body went rigid. A gargling sounded in his throat and his eyes rolled back. He looked like he was convulsing.
“This is your last warning!” I said.
It went unheeded. Nicho let out a ragged scream. I narrowed my gaze down the Beretta’s iron sights, taking aim at the shaman’s chest at such an angle no bystanders would be struck.
Hope the mayor’s wrong about you, I thought, and squeezed off two shots.
A commotion erupted as the crowd charged from the colonnade. But as the brass casings clinked to the ground, the shaman remained standing, no blood on his shirt. He set his jaw and thrust his staff toward me. A walloping force knocked the air from my lungs and me from my feet. Sandals flew around me as I crashed through the vendor’s table and into the store.
I struggled to sit up, the attack seeming to have stolen my strength. I had managed to hold onto my sidearm, but not to Nicho, who had fallen to the thoroughfare. The shaman pivoted his staff toward the boy as he tried to scramble away. An invisible force snared Nicho.
Wants to eliminate him as a source of intel, I thought.
I found the shaman’s head in my sights and fired again. Ear-splitting bangs but no blood. I couldn’t tell what was happening—the rounds just weren’t finding their marks. Three more shots proved equally futile. Meanwhile, the force suspending Nicho arched the boy’s back until it looked like he was going to snap in two. The boy gasped out more screams.
I sprung from the store and toward the shaman. Someone in black reached him first, though. I recognized his smell before I got a clear look at his face. It was Guzman, the preacher.
Grunting, he hit the shaman at full speed. The shaman’s staff clattered off as his spiritual rival took him to the ground. Whatever spell had been suspending Nicho cut out, and he fell to his hands and knees.
I grabbed the staff and circled the combatants. They spoke in rapid Spanish as they grappled and threw the occasional punch. Though Salvador Guzman had a good fifty years of youth on Chepe, the Mayan shaman was giving him all he could handle. When Guzman tried to pin Chepe’s arms with his knees, the shaman jabbed a thumb into his Adam’s apple and wrestled him onto his back.
“Bastardo!” Guzman roared.
But the maneuver had given me the clean blow I needed. Whatever protection the shaman had wielded moments before must have depended on his staff, because my fist landed against the back of his head with a dull thud. I had pulled the punch, sparing the shaman a skull shattering. I needed him alive to tell us where the children were. Guzman wriggled from underneath the shaman as the old man’s bandana-wrapped head slumped forward.
“No!” a voice cried.
I spun to find Mayor Flores running toward us. She dropped to her knees beside the old man, one hand stroking the back of his head, before turning her accusing eyes on me.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
“He attacked us,” I growled. “And I know you don’t want to hear this, but he’s involved in the abductions. We’ll worry about how later. Right now we need to detain him before he recovers.”
“No, you don’t understand,” the mayor said. “He was looking for help.”
“Help?” I said. Guzman, who had sidled up next to me, made a scoffing soun
d.
“Yes, he came to my office after you and I spoke on the phone,” the mayor said. “He says for the past month he has been trying to destroy the evil, but he cannot do it alone. He wants to join forces with you.”
Yeah, so he can finish us off.
“Listen,” I said between clenched teeth, “everything points to him.” I began to tick the evidence off. “The cat in our building—“
“He admitted to leaving it,” Mayor Flores said quickly, “to cast a spell of protection. He does not like to use death spells, especially on innocent animals, but they are necessary when the spell must be powerful. He did the same around town, which has kept much of the evil out so far.”
Guzman snorted. “Keep out evil by invoking Satan? Ha!”
But I was thinking of Torpe’s remains, still smoking in the back of the van.
“What about the vampire ambush this morning?” I challenged. “Did he have an explanation for that?”
“The vampires have been hunting him. It is natural they would stake out his place.”
“Yeah, according to him,” I said. “He attacked us just now. He tried to kill the boy.” I gestured to where Nicho had fallen, but he was no longer there. I looked around. He wasn’t anywhere.
“Rusty,” I radioed. “Did you catch Nicho leaving?”
“Damn, got sort of caught up in listening to your convo down there. Hold on, let me go back.” After a few seconds he said, “Yep, there he goes, making off like a little mouse.”
I clenched my jaw. Damned ADD. “Where is he now?”
Rusty blew out his breath. “No telling, boss. I had the camera tight up on the building. He took off north, toward where the trucks and buses are. Might’ve jumped on one of them. I’ll keep looking.”
“Crap,” I muttered.
I considered taking off after his scent, but with the mayor still staunchly on Chepe’s side, I didn’t want her spiriting him away while I was gone. Not when I was still ninety percent certain he was our guy. I walked over and lifted the shaman under an arm. He sagged, his woven purse dangling from his body.
“No,” the mayor pled as I started to carry him away. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“He tried to kill the boy,” I repeated. “I was right here.”
Blue Shadow (Blue Wolf Book 2) Page 16