“This is so surreal…” Ángel breathed. “
Pixies
? Next, we will be visited by the ghosts of the dear departed.”
“May fifth is a ways off yet,” Remmy pointed out.
“You mean, they really do visit?”
“Of course.” Remmy rolled his eyes.
The pixie in front of Octavia had flitted forward a few feet. Now she came back. In Octavia’s mind, as if she had created the thought for herself, was a firm and unequivocal notion that yes, they were to follow the pixies.
“We have to go with them,” Octavia said. “It’s urgent.”
“So I’m given to understand,” Remmy said. He put his knife away.
“They told you that? I didn’t hear anything,” Ángel complained.
“You didn’t listen,” Octavia said. She raised the gun, intending to put it back in the pack, then hesitated, reluctant to place it out of reach in that way. Instead, she held on to it and moved in the direction her pixie had gone. Immediately, all three pixies flittered together, circling each other and moving ahead of them.
“They’re thrilled we understood,” Octavia said. “Come on. It really is urgent.”
Remmy and Ángel came behind her as they strode and sometimes broke into a slow jog, to keep up with the pixies. They had no difficulty seeing them now, for gold sparkles lit the air behind them like a jet contrail, slowly fading until there was only the imprint left on their retinas like the afterimage of fireworks when they died. There was always more of the trail ahead, though. Sometimes it circled and jumped and sometimes three or more of them twined together, yet the direction was always there. They were heading nearly due east now and the ground was rising.
For forty minutes they followed the pixies and their trails, while the ground climbed sharply and the air grew colder around them. Octavia was immensely grateful for the denim jacket and even Ángel zipped up his parka.
“How high are we?” she wondered aloud.
“As high as anything else in this land. Look around,” Remmy said.
She took her gaze off the pixie trail and looked. Then she came to a stumbling halt, startled into it by the view.
They were on top of the cliffs now. The pixies had led them up a steep yet climbable slope to the flat top. For as far as she could see, the ground was smooth, glowing ochre red in the moonlight.
There were canyons snaking through the flat-topped land, creating dark sinuous shadows and rifts in the surface. They had been in the depths of those not long ago. The spider web of shadows looked like a crazy person’s idea of a maze. It was as well Remmy knew where he was going.
The moon itself hung in the sky to her right, almost ready to set for the night. It looked huge, with glowing yellow edges and the white face marked with the familiar pale grey tattoos. There were wisps of cloud here and there. Otherwise, the sky was a blanket of stars. There were so many of them there was barely any black sky to be seen. The stars were so many they didn’t just twinkle, they glowed with a collective light.
“Mother of God….” Ángel breathed.
“Possibly,” Remmy said thoughtfully. “Mother of Creation?” he amended.
Octavia could easily believe in this moment that she
was
looking at Creation itself. It was spectacular.
And humbling.
The pixies reappeared, circling around them and she could hear their voiceless chattering in her mind. They were urging them on with anxious thoughts.
“Keep going,” Octavia murmured, moving forward.
So did Remmy and Ángel.
Instantly, the pixies leapt ahead of them, flittering away in the dark, their trails fading and drifting down toward the ground.
Soon it became clear that the pixies were leading them toward a dead end.
“The bluffs end just ahead,” Ángel said. “The canyon is miles wide.” His tone was worried.
“Let’s just see what the little…what the pixies want us to see,” Remmy said. “They seem to know what they’re doing.”
“You aren’t worried?” Octavia asked.
“I trust that their message is urgent enough they have overcome their reluctance to show themselves to humans or, indeed, a dreaded vampire.” He sounded complacent. “They are worried. There is no mischief in their voices.”
The flat-topped bluffs ended in sheer cliff face that dropped for hundreds of feet to the canyon floor below. More than a mile away, the cliffs rose again. The canyon snaked between the two in ragged curves. Following the curves was a narrow stream that wound through the center of the canyon.
Looking down from this height, Octavia could see where the stream had once been a raging river. Over the eons it had carved itself the bed it now lay in, glittering in the very last of the moonlight. The moon had touched the horizon now. Soon, there would be only starlight to see with.
The pixies were flitting around them anxiously.
“Look,” Ángel said, pointing.
In the middle of the canyon there were tiny black shapes clustered together, moving like ants.
“That’s Raphael Alonzo,” Ángel said, his eyes narrowed as he studied the cluster of dots. “Miguel…Maria…it’s the people from Manuel Benavides.” He crouched, watching them. “Why are they so far away from the town? Why are they travelling so late in the night? They should have returned by now.”
Remmy pointed. “That’s why. Look.”
Octavia frowned. These two could see far more than she could. She peered anyway. Then she saw it…and heard it. The inhuman whine and growl.
Dark shapes darted at the tightly grouped people. They would run at them, dodge and circle back to the wide perimeter they were keeping. The pattern, the movement, reminded her of something she had seen as a child, many times.
“Ranch dogs….” she breathed. “Oh my lord, they’re
herding
them!” She squeezed her fists, her chest suddenly aching. “They’re driving them up the valley!”
Remmy turned to look to the north end of the valley. It narrowed down to a crevasse and just beyond the slot there was a slightly larger coda.
“It’s a dead end,” Ángel growled.
Remmy held up his hand. “Do you feel that?” he asked him.
Ángel rose to his feet once more and stood next to Remmy, facing to the north. “Blackness. There in the dark, at the end of the canyon.”
“Grimoré,” Remmy breathed. “I don’t know why I am so certain of that, as I have never seen one before. Yet I know they are gathered there as surely as I know the mole on Octavia’s hip and the scar on yours.”
Octavia couldn’t pull her gaze away from the people down below. The vampeen were toying with them and she could almost hear their fright. They had no idea what the vampeen were. They didn’t know that there were more evil forces around them than the vengeance of a cartel hatchet man. They were helpless down there.
Anger trickled through her. “We have to do something,” she told the other two.
“Yes,” Ángel said flatly.
Remmy held up his hand. “Consider that the Grimoré could be doing this to provoke the very reaction you propose.”
“A trap?” Ángel said. “Probably. That doesn’t mean we sit here and watch, though.”
“They want
us
,” Remmy said.
“You said the vampeen eat humans,” Octavia replied. “The Grimoré might want us, but those vampeen down there are rounding up dinner.”
“They are being directed by the Grimoré, remember,” Remmy said patiently.
“Then let’s kill the fucking Grimoré!” she cried, hefting her gun.
“We can’t. Not now,” Remmy replied. “We are most vulnerable right now. That is exactly why they are doing this. If they kill any one of us, if they disable any one of us, the entire war will swing in their favor.”
She strode over to where he and Ángel stood shoulders together. “We can’t
just sit here!”
Ángel pointed at the tight little knot of people inching along the floor of the canyon. “Do you think you could hit anything from here? Even with that gun?”
Octavia glared at the dark drop-shaped canyon end to the north, where all the darkness was that Remmy and Ángel could feel. Now that they had said it was there she could feel it herself. She suspected it was just her imagination working overtime.
If the Grimoré were there and she had no reason to doubt either of them on that point, then they were making the vampeen bring the people to where they waited in the dark.
Her fury swelled, boiling over. It was the Grimoré that were the key. If she could figure out a way to deal with them, if she could reach them from here—
—the darkness and the cold was suddenly all around her. The air was thick. Miasmic.
The tall shapes were also all around her…and drawing in toward her. Their faces were long, inhuman. Bone white and knobby at the top. They reached for her with long fingers.
Octavia fired the gun. She didn’t have to aim. They were too close together.
The bullet took out one, driving it back off its feet and making it canon into others behind it.
Octavia fired wildly, turning on her heel, taking out at least one with each bullet. The sound of the gun in the enclosed little canyon was enormous, rolling like thunder. The stench of gunpowder was acrid, making her eyes water.
Then the gun clicked emptily.
* * * * *
Ángel gripped Remmy’s arm, as the low thundering sound of gunfire rolled across the canyon. From here they could see the flash of the muzzle, like lightening.
“Get her back!” Ángel cried. The pain in his chest was agonizing. He had never felt anything like it.
“I didn’t send her,” Remmy said. His tone was agonized. “She jumped there herself.”
His fear spiraled. “Tell her to jump back! They’ll kill her!”
Remmy shook his head. His eyes were glittering. “I can’t. That’s not my role.”
Then the firing stopped. The silence was much, much worse.
Ángel tried to get his chest to unlock, so he could breathe. He suspected the only reason he was still on his feet was because of his grip on Remmy’s arm. “
I’m
the hunter,” he muttered.
“She is the fighter. Let us hope she is fighting,” Remmy whispered.
* * * * *
Octavia used the gun as a blunt instrument. It was heavy enough it could bring down one of the fuckers if she hit it square on the side of the head. Only, they were a hell of a lot taller than her, so she had to wait until they leaned toward her.
There was a small wall of bodies all around her that they had to step over to get her and that was what finally made them pause and gave her a chance to think.
How had she got here? She had been thinking about this place. Leaning toward it in her mind. Mental transference?
She shoved aside all the silent voices laughing at the preposterous idea. It was no stranger than pixies and vampires and creatures not of this earth trying to take it over for themselves.
She had leaned toward this canyon, yearning to get her hands around their necks.
So did the reverse work? If she leaned toward Remmy and Ángel, would she—
—she did.
Octavia gasped as the cooler breeze at the top of the bluff bathed her face.
“Octavia!” Ángel cried.
She dropped the gun, that was layered in black ooze and threw herself at Ángel and Remmy even before they could get their arms around her.
Remmy was supposed to be the strongest, yet Ángel’s grip on her was just as tight. He was murmuring, his lips against her cheek, his hand in her hair.
Remmy turned her chin, lifting it. He kissed her and it was a deep, long pause in time before he let her go once more. “I would sooner pluck my own heart out than lose you. Please do not do that again.”
She realized she was trembling. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
“You’re the jumper,” Ángel said. He kissed her hard.
Remmy wrapped his hand around the back of Ángel’s neck, then stroked her cheek. “It’s time. We must seal this now, before the Grimoré sense where we are.”
“Are you sure, Remmy? This isn’t your war,” Octavia reminded him.
“It isn’t yours either.”
“Yes, it is,” she said flatly. “Those people down there…they’re as vulnerable to the Grimoré as they are to the cartels. They’re still innocents trying to live their lives in peace. I forgot that, until just now. This
is
my war. The Grimoré, the cartel, every evil, twisted asshole in the world, that’s the enemy. So let’s do this and let me go carve them a new one.”
Alex had lived in desert lands for a long time so when he first saw them, he thought he was seeing fireflies.
“Pixies!” Diego cried. “They’ve come to help us find them.” He looked up at the little creatures, delighted.
Sera held up her hand and one of them landed on her palm and folded its wings away with a tiny snap. Then he bent and looked down into Sera’s face.
She nodded. “Yes of course we’ll come,” she said. “Show me where.”
The pixie looked at her for a moment, then launched himself into the air, leaving a sparkling trail.
Diego caught her arm. “Call to Seaveth. Tell her to bring
everyone
.”
Sera nodded and held out her arm. “Alex, first,” she told Diego apologetically. “This is his trinity. And Wyatt.” She lifted her other arm. “I’ll come back for you.”
Alexander stepped into the circle of her arm gratefully and pulled out the silvered machete. “Ready.”
* * * * *
Remmy licked Octavia’s wrist as she sat, dazed. Her body was heavy with lust, her mind roiling with insanely erotic images. She just wanted to fuck someone. She didn’t really care who, as long as it was
now
.
“It will pass,” Remmy told her, his voice low. He chuckled. “I do like that look on your face, though.”
He kissed Ángel briefing and patted his cheek. “Still awake, my lover?”
Ángel cleared his throat. “That’s it? We drink each other’s blood and it’s done?”
“It is the formal closure on a process that had been changing us all along,” Remmy told him. “If you think about it, you’ll know what has changed in you, just as you can tell what has changed in Octavia and me. We are forever linked, now.”
Octavia shook her head, trying to clear the thickness and the arousal. She forced herself to her feet and moved to the edge of the bluff and looked down. Ángel came and stood by her side.