The Day of the Dead Read online

  Powerful hands choked him, setting spots dancing in front of his eyes as he grabbed his assailant’s arms, trying to keep his throat uncrushed. He pushed Miguel’s arm the wrong way back until he heard the elbow crack. The vamp didn’t let go, but his hold weakened enough for Tomas to twist and get an arm into his stomach, using all his strength to send him staggering into the path of the falling church. One of the tumbling pews caught Miguel on the side of his head, knocking him back against the newly created embankment, where the heavy wooden cross from the altar pinned him with the force of a sledgehammer.

  It wasn’t quite a stake, but it seemed to do the trick, Tomas thought dazedly, right before something long and sharp slammed into his side. ‘So the traitor has come back at last,’ Rico hissed in his ear, twisting a shard of wood so that it scraped along his ribs, sending stabs of hot pain all up and down his midsection. ‘Allow me to be the first to welcome you home.’

  Tomas jerked away before the sliver could reach his heart, but his knee wouldn’t support him and he stumbled. He felt the hillside disintegrate under his foot, then he was falling, tumbling halfway down the side of the embankment. He grasped the top of a coffin, one of many now sticking out of the newly churned earth, and the lid popped open just in time to intercept another slice from Rico’s stake. A pale, silverfish-grey arm flopped out of the tilted casket, and Tomas sent its owner a silent apology before breaking off the limb to use as a makeshift weapon.

  He spun to see Rico a few feet away, his hand raised as if to strike. Only the blow never fell. Rico jerked once, twice, then he dropped, falling along with the last of the debris into the valley below. For a moment, Tomas didn’t understand what had happened. Then a cascade of spent shotgun shells tumbled down the embankment, rattling against the coffin lid like bones, and he looked up to see a pair of slanting hazel eyes staring down at him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The girl’s blood was dripping onto his face, a soft wet plucking like a light rain.

  ‘I should be asking you that,’ he said, struggling to get back over the edge with only one good leg.

  He felt it when his skin absorbed her blood, soaking it up like water on parched earth, using it to begin repairs on the damage he’d suffered. But it wasn’t enough to do much good. What he needed was a true feeding, something he hadn’t taken time for recently. It had cost him in the fight; he couldn’t afford to let it lessen his already slim chances against Alejandro.

  He paused by Miguel’s impaled body, still full of the blood he’d recently stolen, some of it already pooling in his eye sockets. The sight worked on Tomas the way the smell of a feast would on a starving human. His mouth began to water and his fangs to lengthen without any conscious command from him. He would have delayed it, would have gotten rid of the girl first, but he couldn’t risk having the blood coagulate and lose the energy it contained.

  ‘I have to feed,’ he said simply.

  Instead of recoiling as he’d expected, she merely took in his injuries with an experienced eye. ‘Yeah. Heroics have a way of coming back and biting you in the ass. But when you’re done, we need to talk.’

  He nodded and hunched over Miguel so at least she wouldn’t have to watch. Tomas couldn’t remember the last time he’d fed from another vampire, but he quickly recalled why it wasn’t a common practice. The reused blood nourished him, the lightheaded rush of feeding giving the same almost narcotic high as always, but the taste was like metal in his mouth.

  He forced himself to finish, trying to concentrate on the feel of his cracked ribs re-knitting, on the tear in his side mending and on the grating sensation in his knee slowly fading. The healing of wounds, especially if done so quickly, was excruciating and this was no exception. Tears had leaked out of the corners of his eyes by the time he was finished, forced out by the pain, but Tomas didn’t mind. Pain was good. Pain meant he was still alive.

  ‘I hate it when that happens.’

  Tomas looked up to find the girl scowling around at the cemetery. Or what was left of it. A huge swath had been carved out of the middle, where nothing but slick red earth remained. On either side, coffins stuck out of the ground like bony fingers, with a few marigold crosses scattered here and there haphazardly.

  Up above, on the crest of the hill, the remaining half of the church swayed dangerously on its ancient foundations. One last pew teetered precariously on the edge of the abyss, half in and half out of the structure. Inside the church, a single candle still burned.

  ‘You handle yourself pretty well in a fight,’ she continued, as Tomas rose from Miguel’s exsanguinated corpse.

  ‘I’ve had some practice.’

  She gave a sputtering laugh, short and mocking. ‘Yeah. I bet.’

  Tomas pulled himself over the edge and examined her. Amazingly, she seemed to be all right. There was a shallow cut on her forehead and few scrapes and scratches here and there, but nothing serious. It was little short of miraculous.

  ‘We need to talk, but we ought to get out of here,’ she said, slinging her shotgun over her back again. He’d heard her reloading while he fed. ‘Half the village is likely to be here any minute.’

  Tomas sat down on the edge of a stone bearing weathered Mayan hieroglyphs. ‘I doubt it,’ he said wryly.

  She studied him silently for a moment, then plopped down alongside. ‘Want to fill me in?’

  ‘This is the Day of the Dead. And in this area, that term has always had more than one meaning.’ He spent a few minutes sketching out for her Alejandro’s idea of a good time, making it as clinical and unemotional as he could. It didn’t seem to help.

  ‘Let me get this straight. That son of a bitch has taken my brother to use in his stupid games?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Tomas agreed. ‘Although I can’t understand it. He never took magic users before.’

  ‘Maybe he got bored. Wanted more of a challenge.’

  ‘Does a cat get tired of playing with lizards or mice, and attack the neighborhood dog instead? Preying on weaker creatures is Alejandro’s nature. But if your brother is a mage, he wouldn’t fall into that category.’

  ‘His type of magic isn’t likely to help him much,’ she said curtly.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’ She stood up. ‘Just tell me where I can find this guy.’

  Tomas shook his head. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? Based on how his vamps treated you, I got the impression you weren’t all that close.’

  He smiled at the understatement. ‘We aren’t. But helping you commit suicide won’t aid your brother.’

  ‘Tell me where to find this Alejandro, and the only one dying will be him.’

  Tomas got slowly to his feet, gingerly putting his weight on the injured knee. It held. ‘For what it’s worth, I’ve come to kill him. If I succeed, it may cause enough chaos to allow your brother to escape. Wish me luck.’

  He started to go, but a hand on his arm stopped him. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘I told you – that would not be wise.’

  ‘Really? And you think you’d have survived just now without me? It sounds like you going alone isn’t so wise, either.’

  Tomas turned to face her, already exasperated. He had enough on his plate tonight. He didn’t need this. ‘You may be good with a gun, but that won’t keep you alive. Alejandro was once my master. I know what he’s capable of.’

  ‘Uh huh. And can he break off half a mountain because he loses his temper?’

  Tomas regarded her narrowly. ‘You’re saying that was you?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying. I’m a jinx.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Jinx. J.I.N.X. A walking disaster area. Fault lines love me. Of course, so does just about anything else that can go wrong.’

  ‘An inconvenient talent.’

  ‘And an illegal one. If the magical community ever finds out a jinx as powerful as me is walking around, they’ll kill me. Whic
h is why I got really good at protecting myself – and other people – a long time ago. This vampire has bought himself more trouble than he knows.’

  ‘Bringing down a mountainside won’t help your brother. If he’s where I think he is, it would only bury him as well.’

  ‘I can control it. And this isn’t exactly my first time at the rodeo. I can take care of myself.’

  Tomas hesitated, instinct warring with dawning hope. ‘I tried to draw someone else into this recently, and almost got her killed,’ he finally admitted. ‘I swore that I’d never do that again. This is my fight – ’

  ‘It wasyour fight. Once that bastard took Jason, he made it mine.’ When Tomas just stared at her, trying to think of some way to get rid of her that did not involve actual violence, the ground grumbled beneath him. The precariously perched pew gave up the struggle and slid down the hillside, only to go sailing off into the void like a huge wooden bird. ‘Look, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. You think you’ve got troubles now? Try leaving me behind. My brother is all I’ve got, and he is notdying tonight.’

  ‘It will not be easy,’ he said, wondering how to even begin to explain what they were up against.

  The girl snorted. ‘Yeah. I kind of got that.’ She held out her hand. ‘Sarah Lee. And no, I don’t cook.’

  ‘Tomas.’

  ‘Well Tomas. We gonna stand here exchanging pleasantries all night, or go kill a vampire?’ Tomas didn’t say anything, but he slowly took her hand. She grinned. ‘Well, all right then.’

  * * * * *

  ‘Jason is a reporter for the Oracle,’ Sarah said, as Tomas hotwired her brother’s rental car. Hers had been parked in the part of the cemetery that hadn’t survived and was currently exploring the bottom of the valley. ‘We were supposed to meet up in Puerto Vallarta for a vacation, but when I got to the hotel, he’d already left. All I found was a note telling me he’d got a lead on a story and asking me to meet him here.’

  ‘If Alejandro has started kidnapping magic users, it would be front-page news,’ Tomas agreed, as the engine on the old subcompact finally turned over. ‘Or your brother could have found out about one of his other businesses. He controls everything from magical narcotics to weapon sales in much of Central and South America.’

  ‘I know. I’ve dealt with his people before.’ At Tomas’s sideways look, she shrugged. ‘I can’t buy weapons from legitimate sources, not in the quantities I need. The authorities monitor that kind of stuff.’

  ‘Why would you need huge quantities of magical weaponry?’

  ‘Why do you want to kill your old master?’ she countered. ‘I didn’t even think that was possible.’

  They bounced out onto the main road through the village, with only the weak light of a quarter moon to see by. ‘It wouldn’t be, if he were still my master. I challenged him to combat, but he wouldn’t face me. He brought in a champion, a French dueling master, instead. But rather than kill me as Alejandro had wanted, after Louis-Cesare defeated me, he claimed me as his slave. I only recently escaped.’

  ‘And came straight back here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s very…heroic.’

  Tomas didn’t think it qualified as heroism if he had nothing left to lose. But he didn’t say so. Her tone made it clear that the word she’d really been searching for was ‘stupid’.

  ‘Alejandro killed the entire population of my village. There isn’t anyone else.’ If the dead were ever to be avenged, it was up to him to do it. And after four hundred years, they’d waited long enough.

  ‘So you came back alone.’ She shook her head. ‘People like you are bad for business.’

  ‘You’re a mercenary.’ Tomas supposed he should have figured it out before.

  ‘We prefer the term ‘outside contractor’.’

  ‘I couldn’t afford to hire a team,’ Tomas said, turning onto the pitted road leading into the mountains. ‘And you also came here alone.’

  A dark shape suddenly loomed in front of them, forcing Tomas to squeal tires and practically stand the car on end to avoid hitting it. The shape resolved itself into a tall, gaunt man, with the brilliant eyes of a fanatic set deep in the hollows of his craggy face. ‘Not so much,’ Sarah said, climbing out of the car. ‘Boys, glad you could make it.’

  ‘Looks like we already missed some of the fun,’ another man commented, stepping out of the jungle that hedged the road on each side.

  Tomas stared hard at the new arrival. He hadn’t heard him approach, and that was unacceptable. Unless he was a mage using magic to mask his breath, the sound of his heart beating, his footfalls – all would have alerted Tomas to his presence.

  But he didn’t look like a mage. He had a jagged, ugly scar on his right cheek, as if someone had dragged a fork with sharpened tines over his skin. It was the sort of thing that could be fixed by magical healers or covered by a glamourie. Unless, of course, its owner preferred to look like an extra from a horror flick.

  ‘Meet my knife and gun club,’ Sarah said, slapping the man on the back. ‘At least the ones close enough to get here in time for the festivities.’

  The men didn’t greet him, and nobody offered any names, but they also didn’t demand to know what Sarah was doing with some strange vampire. Of course, she didn’t give them much of a chance, launching directly into an explanation of the problem. If Tomas had had a doubt about their profession, it would have been quieted by their reaction to the news that they were about to raid a vampire stronghold.

  ‘Can I keep the bones?’ the fanatic hissed, speaking for the first time. ‘They’re useful in some spells.’

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ Sarah said, shrugging. ‘But no collecting until we have Jason, understood?’

  The man gave a quick nod that reminded Tomas of a lizard or some other kind of reptile. It wasn’t a human movement. The other man didn’t say anything at all, just switched out a couple of the weapons in the collection draped over his body for several others he drew from a pack on his back. Then everybody got in the car.

  Tomas pulled off the road a few miles to the north, where a burbling stream snaked its way through the dense jungle. ‘We walk from here,’ he said, pushing the car off the road in case any of Alejandro’s men were out a little early.

  ‘I don’t see a house,’ Sarah had pulled night- vision goggles out of her associate’s pack, and was staring around.

  ‘There isn’t one. Alejandro lives underground.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘There are some Mayan ruins near here, with a maze of underground passages beneath them. He’s lived there for centuries.’

  ‘Great.’ She sounded less than enthused.

  ‘What is it?’

  'Nothing. What about guards?’

  ‘Normally, the entrances are all watched. That’s why I picked tonight to return. They will be open for the hunt, as the prisoners’ first challenge is to find their way out of the maze. Many never do.’

  ‘We need to reach them before they’re released, then. Otherwise, they’ll be scattered in the tunnels, in the jungle – we’ll never find them all.’

  ‘I thought the plan was to rescue your brother.’

  ‘Yeah. Like I’m going to leave you and the rest to be prey to that thing.’

  Tomas glanced at her, but it was difficult to see much of an expression behind the absurd goggles. She’d sounded sincere enough, though. And he couldn’t let her go in thinking that way.

  ‘I know where they used to keep the prisoners. We’ll go there first. And if we’re lucky enough to locate your brother alive, you need to take him and go.’

  ‘I don’t abandon a colleague in the middle of a mission. We go in together, we leave together. That’s how it works.’

  ‘Not if you want to stay alive!’ Tomas grasped her arm. ‘I have the best chance of reaching Alejandro alone. If you stay to help me, both you and your brother will die. Not to mention that you will almost certainly cause me to fail at my task.’

&
nbsp; She stopped, looking from the hand on her arm to his face. He released her, but the steady stare didn’t change. ‘If you don’t want my help, why are you taking me along?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because you wouldn’t find your brother alone. Not in time.’

  ‘And why would you care about that? You don’t even know him.’

  ‘I might not know your brother, but I’ve known plenty of others.’ A thousand faces, ten thousand, he’d lost count over the years. All of those eyes begging him to help them, to save them. They’d seen his face, the one that had prompted Alejandro to nickname him ‘my angel,’ and assumed he was their savior. Only to realize with horror that he was one of those hunting them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alejandro forced me to help with the hunts,’ Tomas said bluntly, ‘because he knew how much I hated it.’ Telling her was unnecessary, but it was probably his last chance for confession. He didn’t remember the last time he’d talked with a priest, not even the last time he’d wanted to, and she couldn’t absolve him anyway. But then, considering some of the things he’d done, he doubted that anyone could. ‘I’ve killed hundreds just like Jason,’ he added, trying to keep his voice neutral. ‘And the only mercy I could show them was to make it quick. For once, I’d like to help someone survive. And to have Alejandro be the one wallowing in his own blood.’

  ‘That’s a plan I can get behind,’ she said, fingering her automatic.

  Tomas shook his head and didn’t comment. Once she saw what was waiting for them, her bravado would fade. Just like everyone else’s always did. The two men didn’t say anything. But when he and Sara stepped into the undergrowth, they followed.

  The next hour was taken up with slipping through a jungle through which no paths had ever been carved, followed closely by a damp cloud of mosquitoes. Sara managed it better than Tomas had expected; it wasn’t easy going even for him. Alejandro had left the jungle intact for exactly that reason: it formed an added layer of protection. It also added to the fun of his hunts, watching mere mortals flounder around in the endless green sea until he chose to put them out of their misery.