The room was dark but clean. Both beds were covered in traditional blankets of bright, ornate wool, and the bathroom was spartan and not very welcoming. At least there was a showerhead, although the scary-looking thing had one of the built-in heating elements that Ray was convinced would one day electrocute him.
The shower could wait. Ray flopped onto a bed, which squeaked loudly. “Oh my God,” he sighed. “I feel so civilized.”
Mantu sat down on his bed and took off his shoes. “Enjoy it. This may be the last bed you sleep in for a while. We have a long haul ahead after this. More mountains and then the roads might get even worse. At least until we get near Petén. Then when we get near El Varón’s you’d better be ready to do a lot of hiking.”
Ray kicked off his shoes, then pulled off his shirt and pants and climbed under the sheets. They were rough but at this point they felt as luscious as satin. “You’re always full of good news. How much hiking are you talking about?”
Mantu shook his head. “I’m not sure. But you can’t just drive up and ring El Varón’s doorbell like the Avon lady. Narcos like him have guards stationed on the roads for miles all around. With walkie-talkies, because the DEA monitors cellphone traffic. You drive anywhere within ten or fifteen miles and you start getting pulled over by these bastards, and if you don’t have a good reason to be there, you might wind up buried in a grave next to the last thirty idiot motherfuckers who thought they would drop by to say hello. So we have to find another way. And that means a nice little scenic walk through the jungle.”
Jungle. Ray had grown to hate the word. “I don’t want to think about it yet.” He still had scars and scabs from his long night in the woods after the carnival. “How’s your plan coming along? Any fresh ideas?”
He shrugged. “I think so. I might have something soon.”
“Is it more than us going kamikaze on this El Varón bastard and getting blown to pieces?”
“Not much, but yes. I brought along a little something I think may help us.”
“And—let me guess—you’re gonna keep it a secret.”
“For now, Ray.” He turned off a lamp, and the room went dark. “Now get some sleep.”
—
That night, she came to him.
Ray was walking along a rocky trail, his feet bare, through a murky patch of woods. He looked at his feet and was surprised at how small they were. A boy’s feet. He looked up, then back down, and they were his adult feet again. Well, that was good. He needed to be grown up because there was something bad up ahead. This was no place for kids.
Blackwater. He was back. On his way to find Ellen, spread-eagled and tied on top of an obscene slab of rock inside a grasping stone hand. What was he doing back here again, anyway? He looked down, and all he was wearing was a deep scarlet robe. His hands were empty.
No matter. He’d figure it out. He’d done it before, countless times now. Find her, get the ropes off, hoist her over his shoulder, and run away from the wicked-hot fire that burned at the center of the skeletal rock fingers. At least that’s how the dream usually ended.
But this wasn’t a dream. He looked down at his feet, and they were bloody and bruised purple from walking so long on rocks and sticks and roots. Dreams didn’t hurt like this.
Ahead he heard Ellen scream.
He ran faster. Above him, in the sky, two orange blobs of light zipped through the trees. Toward Ellen’s frantic screams.
And then he saw the flickering firelight ahead, and the shadows cast by the sharp towering rocks. The Hand.
He thought he saw Micah, in his ridiculous white suit, but then he realized Micah was dead. Drowned in a pool of his own blood.
But it didn’t matter. Ellen was what mattered, and he was getting closer. So close he could smell her perfume. Jasmine. Mixed with her sweat, her musk, her hot, coppery breath.
As he stepped into the clearing, into the light and heat from the sacrificial fire, he stopped. A cold fear rose up from the black soil and through his legs, his guts, and squeezed his heart like the fingers of a corpse.
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out.
Lily. She was naked. Oh yes, she was as naked as the day she was born, sitting on the slab of rock with her legs pulled up, leaning back on her arms so that her breasts—nipples hard like pebbles—shone in the dancing light of the fire. Her hair hung over her shoulders, thick red, curled and twisted ropes, as red as the core of the flames. And her eyes, oh my God, so big and so inviting and so very full of magic and promises.
Come to me, my love, she whispered.
She slowly spread her knees apart. Slid her fingers down between her legs. She lifted her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and held them out to Ray.
They were covered in blood. Deep, dark, rich blood, a blood that would take him to places he couldn’t possibly imagine.
His penis stiffened.
For just a second he thought about Ellen. But this wasn’t Ellen’s dream. This dream belonged to Lily, fingers wet and bright red with the thick, mucous blood of birth and life and resurrection and power. Slipping them between his lips.
Eat me, Ray, she whispered. Eat and be reborn.
His mouth closed around her fingers and he sucked at them. The blood lit off a fire in his brain and behind his eyes, where a cascade of colored sparks danced in wild patterns. His entire body filled with light, and a loud buzzing drone—like the din of a thousand jungle insects—filled his ears and threatened to obliterate everything. He’d tasted immortality, and now he was melting into eternity.
And then she wrapped herself around him, and he was naked, his robe somehow gone, her legs locking behind his thighs and pulling him into her wetness, where he penetrated deeply, so deep he felt like he’d never be able to withdraw. Her breasts crushed against his chest and as her arms wrapped across his back her fingernails dug into his sides, cutting into his skin. She was cleaving to him, melding into him, and where her fingernails had dug into his flesh he felt rivulets of blood beginning to flow.
I drink your blood of life, Mother, he said, but it came out in a language that wasn’t his—a bark, an atonal string of foul, ugly syllables.
Ray, my prince, she whispered in his ear as her hips rocked and pulled him deeper. You are mine, always mine, and now I have you again and you shall never escape me.
Mother, he whispered in the same ugly tongue as before. Gtha’lku Ghzz’cthuum clattorazzqa, my soul for you, my blood for you.
And then she ran her bloodied lips across his neck, biting through it, teeth breaking through the skin. He felt the onrush of orgasm. His wet blood dribbled but she lapped it up, her tongue and lips closing and sucking, and with every suck of his blood he grew closer to exploding, the rocking of her hips, the thrust of her legs against the backs of his thighs, her nails sinking deeper and deeper into his skin, the rising energy building and building.
Oh no oh Jesus she’s eating me she’s eating all of me and swallowing me and—
He woke up screaming.
Mantu scrambled from his bed, knocked over a glass, and turned on the lamp.
Ray sat up, gasping for breath.
Mantu’s eyes widened. “What the fuck is on your neck?”
Ray stared. He was still half in the dream. Nothing made sense.
“Your neck!” Mantu yelled and jumped to his feet.
And then Ray felt it—something about the size of golf ball on the side of his neck. He touched it and screamed. It was rough, prickly, and had legs. He slapped at it but it seemed stuck.
“Get it off!” Mantu yelled.
Ray pulled at it, repulsed by the spiky carapace under his fingers. But it also felt oddly metallic. It was stuck in him—embedded like a tick. He pulled and it dislodged with a horrible rip and pain that nearly blinded him. A long piece of its mouth slipped out from beneath his skin like a needle.
He threw the thing across the room. It clattered, like a cheap toy car.
Mantu ran after it,
and when Ray turned, he saw it scuttling across the tile floor, its multiple legs clicking against the stone. Mantu grabbed a nearby water glass and hurled it, but the thing disappeared beneath a wooden cabinet as the glass exploded into fragments.
“What is it?” Ray asked. He held his neck and felt hot blood beneath his fingers.
Mantu didn’t answer. He grabbed one of his boots and stepped around the broken glass. He put his fingers to his lips—quiet—and held the cabinet. With a grunt he pushed it away and held his boot up, ready to crush the insect-thing.
It was gone.
There was a small hole, maybe a mouse hole, in the bottom of the wall. Ray got up and stood by Mantu. He looked at his blood-smeared hand.
Mantu looked at him darkly. “I don’t know for sure what it is. But I’m worried about what it might be.”
—
Mantu tended to Ray’s neck in the bathroom. The puncture wasn’t large—a little larger than a needle’s width—but it had bled a lot. He took a piece of toilet tissue and held it against the puncture hole until it was soaked red. He put the soaked tissue aside and cleaned Ray’s neck with a T-shirt. When he was done he wrapped the shirt around Ray’s neck and told him to keep applying pressure. He grabbed the bloody tissue and went back into the other room.
“What are you doing?” Ray asked, but Mantu held his finger to his lips and shushed him.
Ray watched as Mantu picked up a black clay flowerpot off the dresser. He stood to the side of the mouse hole and placed the bloody tissue a few inches from its entrance.
Ray nodded. He was using it as bait.
They waited. Ray felt his skin grow hot, and sweat dripped from his chin. They’d need to open some windows.
Mantu’s eyes were fixed on the hole, his hand clenching the heavy flowerpot, barely breathing, arm cocked, his teeth set. The only movement was the slight flaring of his nostrils as he breathed.
They waited.
And then it poked out its head.
Ray nearly gasped. He’d never seen anything like it. Its head was bulbous, with flylike black compound eyes and quivering antennae. But the worst part was its mouth—a series of concentric circles of teeth, and, extending from the mouth, a long, needlelike proboscis.
Ray winced and felt sick. That thing was in my fucking skin.
It moved out a little bit more, two spindly, bristle-covered legs pushing and tentatively tapping on the tiled floor. Then came two more segmented legs, and the proboscis moving in erratic, jumpy arcs as it seemed to taste the air around the lump of blood-soaked tissue. Ray felt his gorge rise as the creature slid out of the hole in its entirety—the thing was hideous, and unlike any insect he’d seen, with a shiny, oily black carapace and multifaceted eyes that seemed strangely intelligent.
Mantu brought down the flowerpot.
The insect hissed as shattered ceramic exploded and shards bounced across the floor.
It scrabbled back toward the hole, but some of its legs were broken, scratching the floor.
Mantu kicked it away from the hole and it smacked against the wall next to Ray. Ray flinched.
“Get the fucker!” Mantu yelled.
Ray reached down and grabbed one of his boots. The insect zigged and zagged, heading for the bed. Ray cursed himself for flinching and slammed the boot against the floor. Missed. It vanished beneath the bed.
Mantu grabbed for a book on the shelf. A Bible. Not an abridged one, apparently, based on its size, but a full Old and New Testament as thick as his fist. He nodded to Ray and mimed pulling the bed away from the wall.
Sweat dripped off the end of Ray’s nose. He shivered, but nodded back to Mantu. No way would he let that nasty thing get away this time. Not a chance.
He yanked the bed so hard he almost fell over.
Nothing. A dust bunny and a pack of matches.
“What—”
Mantu shushed him.
The insect bolted out from beneath the bed. It must have latched itself onto the underside.
It was skittering—making that horrid, metallic and plasticky click-click-click—rapidly toward the hole in the wall.
Mantu threw the Bible. A direct hit. The Bible bounced away and opened to somewhere midway, the pages spreading like squat legs.
Still alive. It moved, jerkily, only a couple of its legs pulling it forward. Its carapace was cracked and there was dark red liquid smearing across the tile as it lurched.
Ray lifted his boot and brought it down hard. Again. And again. Each time the crack was sickening but satisfying, and he screamed “Die!” with each smack of his boot heel, spit foaming and spattering from his lips.
“It’s dead,” Mantu said.
But Ray hammered it again. And once more. Just to be safe.
Someone knocked on the door and they both jumped. It was the owner, asking if everything was okay. Through the closed door, Ray told him it was—he’d fallen while walking to the bathroom in the dark, but everything was all right. No problema, está bien. That seemed to satisfy the man, and Ray heard his receding footsteps.
Mantu was on the floor, looking closely at the remains of the insect.
“What is it?” Ray asked.
Mantu didn’t answer. “Get me your knife and a pencil or a pen. I want to do a little autopsy on this thing.”
—
“Jesus,” Ray whispered. “What is that?”
Mantu had cut open the bottom of the insect-thing’s carapace and lifted out a piece of something shiny on the end of the knife blade. It was almost perfectly square, covered in blood—My blood, Ray thought, with a shiver—and winding over it in complex patterns were what looked like reflective threads. Mantu held it closer to his eyes, rotating it in the lamplight. “What’s it look like to you?”
Ray grimaced. “I don’t know. If I didn’t know it was inside a bug I’d swear it was a computer chip.”
“Bingo,” Mantu said.
Ray looked closer. “You mean it’s not a real bug?”
Mantu cocked his head. “You don’t believe this is real?”
“No, I mean, of course it’s real. But it’s not a bug—an insect. It’s some kind of…machine.”
“You ever seen a machine like this? Ever seen a machine run across the room like that? Or bleed when you smash it?”
Ray stared. “No. But what is it? Don’t be cagey with me now, Mantu. The thing was sucking my blood. What is it?”
Mantu pushed the knife into the underside of the head. It sounded like a beer can pop-top when the blade broke through. He dug inside, then spread the head open with a pencil. When he pulled out the knife, a crystalline bead the size of pea glistened on the end of the blade. “This is its brain.”
“Its brain is a rock?”
“A crystal. Shit. This is bad, Ray.”
“What?” Ray wiped his forehead, which was beaded with sweat. His whole body felt clammy and suddenly cold.
Mantu lifted an eyebrow. “You feeling okay?”
Ray felt the weight of the question, and what it implied, and his breath caught in his throat. “I’m fine. Well, not really.” A wave of dizziness forced him to sit.
Mantu’s eyes narrowed. “Son of a bitch. That wasn’t a bug, and it wasn’t a machine. It was a construct.”
“A construct?”
“Half-alive, half-man-made. Or maybe I should say woman-made.”
Ray’s eyes widened. “No,” he whispered.
“A construct is powered by psychic energy. It’s hard to explain, but that little crystal brain is programmed by someone, just like a robot, with a job to do. It’s single-minded. But it takes someone extremely skilled to mix technology with biology. And someone even more skilled to breathe life into it. That shit is the kind of R and D only a few people know about—a couple of magicians in the Brotherhood can probably make things like this.”
“And so can she.” Ray felt the blood draining from his face. Good thing he was sitting on the floor.
“It had to be her. She sent this
little fucker after you. Programmed it to find you.”
Ray’s voice seemed to come from somewhere else. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears. “And poison me.”
“So much for our good night’s sleep. Let’s get your stuff together. We’re going to need to get you fixed up fast.”
—
Steve sat in the courtyard of an expensive villa in the suburbs of Mexico City. Flowers hung from pots, and the statues reminded him of the ones in Lily’s office—ancient-looking things, weathered black stone and vaguely human. His host, Manuel, a tall thin man with deep-set eyes and a square chin, sat across from him. He reminded Steve of some of the CIA bigwigs he’d met in Afghanistan—sophisticated and worldly, but with a smile that wouldn’t fade in the slightest even if you were bleeding to death in front of him.
“Mr. Davis, it is unusual for me to bring someone from the outside into our organization.” His English was impeccable, and if Steve had been blindfolded, he never would have known the man was a Mexican national. “But if she sent you, then I have absolute faith in your abilities.”
Steve nodded. “I spent five years in Afghanistan running special ops. Interrogation of high-value targets, and several counterinsurgency—”
Manuel waved his hand. “It is enough that she sent you. And you have a personal interest in this particular mission, am I correct?”
“I’m looking for my son. And his mother.”
Manuel smiled. “Well, that is quite a motivation—and personal motivations mean everything in our business, I think you would agree. And it happens to dovetail quite nicely with our interests as well.” A maid brought glasses of beer, but Steve declined. He was still off-kilter from the flight and the trip in an armed convoy from the airport with only a few hours sleep. He had long ago learned to stay sharp when in the presence of sharks in uniforms and suits.
“I cannot give you all the details, of course,” Manuel said. “As a military man, you understand.”
Steve nodded.
“Good. I will introduce you to Enrique, my captain, tonight. He is in charge of our tactical planning and overseeing of our soldiers. I’m sure he will be grateful to hear about your training.”
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