Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts) (12 page)

“I strongly urge you to have a heart-to-heart with the chaser council, Wayra,” said Ricardo. “You have pull with them. Most of them respect you. And all of them are scared shitless of you and your wife. They think you two are, let’s see, what’re the words I heard?
‘Unpredictable, evil, not like us, selfish…’”

Wayra chuckled. “Sounds like Newton and Maria and maybe Simon. What do you want?”

Ricardo threw his arms out, a gesture that encompassed all the erasure, the strange emptiness. “Isn’t it
fucking obvious
? The chasers intend to disappear Esperanza. If you and Charlie Livingston put pressure on them, they may back off. We want the same thing—human, shifter,
brujo.
We want to be left in peace to draw upon the power of this beautiful and magical city.”

Wayra rolled his eyes and laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “You were always a lousy liar, Ricardo.”

Tess and Ian exchanged a glance. She mouthed,
Charlie’s Zippo in my pocket,
and hoped Ian understood what she’d said—and what it implied. She could see that pulse beating at his throat, could see that his hands were fisted, and knew that in the next few moments, he would hurl himself at Diego in an attempt to drive the
brujo
out.

“If you release Diego’s body,” Wayra said, “I’ll talk to them.”

“Aw, please.” Ricardo shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You disappoint me, Wayra.”

Except that it was Diego’s head that Tess saw, Diego’s voice that she heard, Diego’s face that grimaced.

“Wayra, Wayra, always the negotiator. I suspect you’ll talk to them regardless and, quite frankly, I’m the one in a position of power here.”

“What do you want?” Ian barked. “What the fuck is it that you really want, Ricardo?”

“Besides your lady friend there, Ian? When’re you two going to get married, anyway? My tribe has been waiting for that so we could seize your guests. That’s how we
brujos
are. Eternally fucked up and beyond repair.” His eyes flicked to Wayra. “Your position of power, my shifter friend, is down there with amoebas. Say bye-bye to adopted son.”

Diego gasped, his eyes bulged in their sockets, rolled back into his skull, and then a drop of blood spilled from his right eye and slipped down his cheek.

This fucker is going to bleed him out, Tess thought, and brought out her father’s Zippo, snapping the lid the way he did, snapping it fast, hard, trusting that her dad had a good reason for causing it to materialize in her jacket pocket. Then she aimed it at Diego and ran her thumb back over the roller and a tremendous flame shot out, a flame so far beyond the ability of this lighter that she knew her dad had arranged it. She kept flicking it, and with every flick, the fire burned hotter, more brightly.

Diego threw his hands to his face and stumbled back, shrieking. Richie Asshole leaped from the top of Diego’s skull, a discolored smudge in the sunlight, like a puff of dark smoke. Tess’s hand jerked upward, the flame now so hot and large she felt its heat against her face. But the puff of dark smoke had evaporated, and Wayra rushed toward Diego’s crumpled body.

3.

Wayra lifted Diego’s head into his arms, and struggled to ignore the beads of blood trailing from beneath his eyes, seeping from his ears, the corners of his mouth. He tried not to shriek, scream, rage, attack. Diego wasn’t dead. He was only compromised. He kept telling himself this, over and over again.

If I turn him, he’ll be healed, freed …

“No.” His wife spoke before she had shifted fully.

Wayra’s head snapped up. “Shifter blood can save him.”

“And it will change his life irreparably, forever. Leo can help him.” Illary stood before Wayra, fully human now, her smartphone already pressed to her ear. “He has treated others through the years.”

When Leo answered, she turned away from Wayra, and he looked down at the young man whose head was cradled in his arms. After his parents were seized and bled out by
brujos
eighteen years ago, Diego had stopped talking. Wayra adopted him, a request Diego’s parents had made of him, and even though Diego functioned and went to school and made excellent grades, he didn’t speak for three years. His first words after that long silence were,
I’m not like you, why not?

Diego was the son Wayra never had, couldn’t have. As soon as Wayra had been turned centuries ago, he had become sterile. When Illary had been turned two thousand years ago, she could no longer conceive. Shifter blood and DNA assured the survival of the species by
turning
humans, not through procreation.

When Wayra had returned from Cedar Key with Illary, she and Diego had hit it off immediately. Now they had dinner every Sunday with Diego and his family, and he and Illary had adopted grandchildren.

Wayra ran his thumbs over the drops of blood on Diego’s cheek, wiping them away. He kept talking quietly, speaking to the essence of Diego. Diego stirred, was no longer bleeding from his eyes and ears, but didn’t regain consciousness. Wayra couldn’t stand it anymore and bit into his own wrist, then squeezed drops of his shifter blood into Diego’s mouth and hoped it would sustain him until he could give him more.

When Leo arrived, he knelt next to Diego, took his vital signs. He tugged down the lower lids of Diego’s eyes, examined his ears, the inside of his mouth. “The external bleeding seems to have stopped, but his blood pressure is low, so he may be bleeding internally. I’m going to get him started on an IV and admit him to intensive care. Has his family been notified?”

“
I’m
his family,” Wayra said sharply.

“No siblings? Wife? Kids?”

“He has a wife and kids, but I think they may be on their way to Quito,” Wayra said.

“I’ll call his wife,” Illary said.

Leo started an IV, fitted the bag of fluid on a portable pole, then examined Diego again. “How long did this
brujo
have him?”

“Maybe ten minutes,” Wayra replied.

“Ten minutes too long,” Leo murmured, and got on his cell phone. “He’s probably got the
brujo
bacteria in his blood. We’ll treat it with antibiotics. Was it the same
brujo
who terrorized Tess?”

“Yes,” Ian replied.

“So now they’ve started seizing hosts again?” Leo asked.

Not yet, Wayra thought. What Ricardo had done to Diego was for Wayra’s benefit, just to remind him that
brujos
could seize the people Wayra loved and bleed them out if they wanted to. “Maybe not,” Wayra said. “May I ride in the ambulance with him?”

“Of course,” Leo replied. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

Just then, Tess and Lauren led a pair of medics into the thicket. “Speculation out there is running wild,” Tess said. “All those journalists are from elsewhere. I told them Diego slipped and hit his head.”

“We’re ready for him in the ambulance, Leo,” Lauren said. “And intensive care has his room ready.”

Leo nodded. “Okay, let’s move him onto the stretcher. Lauren, can you ride with him and Wayra?”

“You bet.”

“Tess, Ian and I will follow in our cars,” Illary said.

Diego moaned softly when the medics moved him. The sound tore Wayra apart and he quickly grasped Diego’s hand and spoke to him softly in Quechua, assuring him that he would be okay, that he was already healing.

As they emerged from the trees, people outside the cordoned area surged forward, shouting questions. Wayra ignored them and hurried along behind the stretcher. Before they reached the ambulance, a police car sped into the area, lights flashing, and screeched to a stop alongside them. Martin Torres, the mayor, swung his short, plump legs out of the car and hurried over to Wayra. His squirrel cheeks puffed out, he whipped his sunglasses off his face and motioned toward the stretcher. “What the hell happened here, Wayra?”

“Nice to see you, too, Martin. Diego was seized by a
brujo,
is now unconscious, and for a rundown on his physical condition, I suggest you speak to Dr. Ordeño. I’m riding with Diego to the hospital.”

“Brujos?”
Torres took personal umbrage at the mere suggestion that
brujos
had returned to Esperanza. “There aren’t any
brujos
in this city.”

“Diego was seized and the
brujo
started to bleed him out,” Wayra snapped. “So yes, they’re here. If you were doing your job, you’d know that. And the public should be told about this electromagnetic fluctuation. It’s all going to hit the newspapers, so why not get a jump on it?”

Torres whipped off his sunglasses, jammed them onto the top of his head, and rocked onto the balls of his feet, leaning toward Wayra, who towered over him. “Don’t tell me how to do my goddamn job, Wayra.” He poked Wayra in the chest. “You and your shifter wife are meddling in police business. I could lock you up just for that.”

Their enmity dated back a decade, to the day Dominica had seized Torres’s wife while she and Wayra were in a café. She had demanded that Wayra make love to her then and there. Wayra pushed to his feet and walked away and Dominica had bled out Torres’s wife.

“But you won’t,” Wayra said, and knocked the mayor’s hand away.

He loped over to the ambulance, climbed inside, and one of the medics shut the door. Lauren had just finished taking Diego’s blood pressure. “His pressure is way too low, Wayra. Would your shifter blood help him?”

“I gave him a few drops orally. But he could use more.”

“Do you have to turn him to do that?”

“No. But if I could get some of my blood directly into his body, it would accelerate the healing.”

“A transfusion?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have to type your blood and his and then…”

“I’m O, Lauren. Diego is A positive.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

She thought a moment, eyeing her supplies, then nodded. “Get on that other cot.”

As the ambulance sped through the city, siren wailing, Wayra’s blood flowed into Diego’s body. He shut his eyes, vaguely aware of Lauren’s voice, of her movements.

Just as his shifter blood had enabled him to survive the stab wounds that Ricardo had inflicted all those years ago, he hoped his blood would now save Diego.

As they neared the hospital, Lauren stopped the transfusion and removed the needle from Wayra’s arm. “He got about half a pint, Wayra. You think it’s enough?”

“I don’t know. Let’s play it by ear.”

Wayra sat up and looked over at Diego. “His color already looks better.”

“Yeah, it does.” She took Diego’s pressure again. “His pressure has risen slightly, too. Good signs. I’ll make sure he gets settled in his room. You’ll have to fill out some paperwork.” She opened a small fridge, brought out a container of orange juice and handed it to him. “Drink that, so you don’t feel light-headed.”

As he sipped at the juice, Lauren peeled off her gloves and updated Diego’s info on her iPad. Wayra noticed her gorgeous sapphire. “Congratulations,” he said. “When did
that
happen?”

Lauren glanced up, eyes beaming, and held out her hand, admiring the ring. “Last night.”

“Fantastic. Does Tess know yet?”

“Things have been so nuts, I haven’t had a chance to tell her.” She set the iPad down and sat at the other end of Wayra’s cot. “What do you think is going on, Wayra? Last night when I saw Charlie, he said he was on his way to an emergency council meeting.”

“From what Ricardo said, it sounds like some of the chasers have joined Darth Vader’s dark side. But I don’t believe a damn thing a
brujo
says.”

“Some of them may have,” Diego said hoarsely, and tried to sit up.

Wayra moved quickly toward him. “
Tranquilo, chico.
Don’t try to sit up yet. We’re nearly at the hospital. Why do you say that about the chasers?”

“When … when Ricardo seized me … I found information inside him, just as he found information inside of me, Wayra. He … Ricardo … spies on the chasers, eavesdrops. At least two of them, Newton and … Maria, seem to be the … force behind whatever they’re doing. Ricardo speculates he might even be able to … to
recruit
them. He also thinks … there’s a traitor somewhere among them.”

Or that was what Ricardo wanted Diego to believe, Wayra thought. “A traitor to whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“You rest.”

“No time to rest,” Diego said, and struggled to sit up again.

“Nope.” Lauren gently pushed Diego back again. “Stay put. Do you know why you’ve improved, Diego?”

Diego’s handsome face lit up and he motioned toward Wayra. “Because he … shared his shifter blood with me. I think you and Illary … must donate some of your blood. In case … the city falls under siege again.”

Wayra looked at Lauren, who flashed a thumbs-up. “I’ll see what I can arrange. I think we’re going to need every advantage we can find.”

Wayra hated to admit it, but he suspected she was right.

Six

What Happens at La Pincoya

1.

Outside the
Expat
’s picture window, shadows lengthened and thinned, streetlights winked on in the park across the street, afternoon surrendered to evening. The reflected lights from the small Christmas tree in the office flickered and danced in the glass. Ian tried to ignore the rumbling in his stomach and turned back to the computer and his update on events at the Café Taquina.

The problem was simple: he wasn’t sure who or what was behind the events at the Taquina.
Brujo?
Chaser? Something else? He lacked definitive proof for all of the above.

He decided to present all possibilities, but concentrated on the theory the scientists from the university had provided: an anomaly had occurred that might be tied to the wild fluctuations of electromagnetic energy around the café.

The problem with the scientific viewpoint—which explained nothing—was that everything in this city was an anomaly, a blip in the consciousness of Esperanza. But at the moment, he couldn’t figure out how else to write the article.