Fire Water (Black Magic Outlaw Book 5) Page 23

  "Yes," he said. When the Shadow Dog spoke, his mouth didn't move. His face was a near statue except for his liquid eyes and the occasional twitch of an ear.

  "Why?"

  He snorted. "Any question so broad will have an equally meaningless answer."

  "I mean why me? Why am I so important? Does this really just come down to the actions of a Spanish necromancer five hundred years ago?"

  The Shadow Dog blinked patiently. "The Spaniard was the father of your line. You thrum with his power. But Taíno power flows matrilineally. The mother of your line was a Taíno woman. Your power stems from them both. And from me. And from others, including yourself."

  Whoa. This was getting deep. My lineage was a bridge between worlds, just as Earth is between the Aether and Nether, just as the Intrinsics are between human and spirit. All my power, all my spellcraft, was based on the opposition of forces produced by a long-distant father and mother. That would make a hell of an episode of Family Feud.

  "You speak for the Taíno," said Opiyel, "but you inherited the protections of the Spaniard. He cannot contain you."

  "And you?" I countered. "Why can't you do anything? You and Maque are pretty much gods here."

  "Maquetaurie was stripped of his power by the Christians. He is nothing more than a watcher now. An owl. Patron to none."

  "And what about you?" I pressed.

  Opiyel seemed to smile. "No one can capture the shadow."

  I thought of the patron's legend. The Shadow Dog. The One Who Cannot Be Bound. He was said to have vanished upon the arrival of the conquistadors. That was why so little was known about him.

  "No offense, Opiyel, but if you're still free, why don't you take care of the rogue jinn yourself?"

  The Shadow Dog did not waver. "In life the Spaniard learned a great many talents. Notably how to block Taíno power."

  "But he couldn't overcome the Horn."

  "His prison is formidable. The only alternative for an enemy to whom death means not defeat. Eleven shamans constructed the artifact to inhibit his will, but it can be released by the will of the bearer."

  "He's a slave," I spat. "He wouldn't be here otherwise. He's been compelled against his will, precisely because of what the Taíno did to him."

  The black dog's eyes shimmered as he regarded me. "Then perhaps it is time to rectify that."

  An image flooded my brain. The sealing of the Horn. Gold and copper melted together under fire. Cooled and polished to a sheen. Fire and water. Sharp instruments scrawling symbols of power. The familiar pictographs played across my eyes.

  But that was only the preparation of the ritual. A new vision of fire and water rushed through my mind. The image of a screaming man, bound to a stake, burning alive. I knew only a hint of that feeling. What I witnessed now was pure immolation.

  When the Spaniard's flesh was blacker than ash, the shamans carried over a large pot of water steeped with leaves. The entire stake was upturned into the vat. Steam erupted into the sky. The charred corpse was doused in the brew before the vision ended in a flash.

  I panted as I recollected my senses. Visions from gods didn't go down easy. Why had Opiyel shown me that? Why was he speaking to me now?

  "What was in the water?" I asked. It was the only coherent question I could think of.

  The patron nodded his large head upward. I followed his gaze. Bulbous yellow fruit hung above my head on a low branch. I didn't remember seeing hog plums before, but somehow I knew what they were and how they tasted.

  "Take it," insisted the god.

  I looked at him strangely but rose to my feet. I grabbed the yellow husk and pulled. A branch broke off in my hand. Two hog plums and several long green jobo leaves. The same leaves the Taíno had steeped the Spaniard in.

  "Tributes for the coming trial."

  The voice put me on my knees again.

  "You may eat one."

  I only hesitated a second. At some point, you need to pick sides and trust somebody. I knew who my friends were in the real world. Now I was making a choice in the underworld. I sliced open a hog plum and tasted the pulp.

  "It's sour," I said.

  "All the fruit in Coaybay is. That is why the dead fly to your world at night. They partake of the sweet guava, just as the living must take in the sustenance of the hog plum if they are to survive in the land of the dead. The fruits are a bridge between life and death."

  "A bridge between life and death," I repeated.

  "Two worlds: one sweet, one sour. Life and death are in everything. Maquetaurie Guayaba knows this. The guava ripens and falls from the tree. It decays and grows rotten. Yet the seeds gestate and begin life anew."

  The Shadow Dog paused, lending significance to his next words. "Death is inseparable from life. You must trade one for the other."

  I bit into the fruit and took in his words. They made a sort of esoteric sense, but I couldn't tell if they were just poetry.

  "What about Connor? He controls the Horn now, whether he holds it or not."

  "You must stop the ritual."

  "What ritual? I still don't know what Connor's truly getting at."

  The Shadow Dog turned his head as if watching far-off events unfold. Maybe he was. "The jinn seeks the same as ever. Service."

  "Subjugation," I countered. "But Coaybay? A jinn in the Nether. It doesn't make sense."

  Opiyel turned to me again. The sudden attention was difficult to bear. "Human spellcraft is a gift from the spirits. Impossible without channeling the Intrinsics. Coaybay is a wellspring of such power. Such spirits. Vast and potent, all under the subjugation of one will."

  Holy shit. Connor was seeking to channel human magic. The reserves of loyal spirits, long dead. Except he was doing it by enslaving the entire Taíno underworld. Vast and potent was right.

  I growled. (I think the dog appreciated that.) "He has to be stopped."

  "This is what you are meant to do, shadow walker. This is your purpose."

  "And yours? Will you fight with me?"

  Opiyel sighed. "That is not my purpose. That is for the arbiters, as you call them."

  "The arbiters are getting the unholy shit kicked out of them," I pointed out. "They can't intervene. In case you haven't noticed, I can't do a whole lot by myself either."

  His answer resounded in my head. "That is where you are wrong."

  My back seized up for a second. Then (I shit you not) real, no-joke bat wings sprouted from my back. The shadows extended and folded over my shoulders. Clothes grew and cloaked me like armor. I watched as ashen lines ran up along the back of my arms and fingers. A surge of power like I'd never felt before rushed into me.

  "The Wings of Night," I said in reverence. "You're gifting them to me again."

  A snort escaped Opiyel's snout, more a laugh than anything else. "Once you have the black wings, shadow walker, you never lose them."

  The Shadow Dog pulled back into the trees. The darkness closed around him so completely he was gone within a second.

  "Wait," I cried, shooting to my feet.

  The jolt of power storming through my muscles propelled me into the air. I crashed through the branches and overhead canopy. I launched straight up into the sky. High above Opiyel's lagoon. Overlooking the island below. At the apex of my ascent, shadowy wings snapped to full extension with the sound of a hundred cracking whips.

  Cisco Suarez was fucking flying.

  Chapter 44

  I scanned all of Coaybay with heightened senses. It wasn't just my vantage in the sky. There was a distinct sense of touch involved. I could almost feel the anguish of the island's inhabitants. Like the arbiters themselves, I felt the great coming threat.

  An ominous wind buffeted my wings. A storm was moving in, bringing choppy water and dark clouds thick with moisture. Waves crashed ashore. The jungle walls swayed. A deep rumbling echoed from somewhere distant.

  I turned my attention downward. I still held the spare hog plum branch. I kept it and glided above the landscape, over the
hillside Connor had marched through. Over to the far side of the island. According to legend, this was where the dead congregated. They were Connor's endgame.

  As I rounded the highest mountain, the invading army came into view. My extra-sensory sight zoomed impossibly close to the main attraction. A cave nestled into the base of the mountain. Clear shallows ran from the open mouth in a wide circle like a lake. The army stood in formation around the cave, the water barely at their knees.

  Undead soldiers marched the inhabitants outside. Taíno locals, dead themselves. Unlike the arbiters, the souls of the dead appeared flesh and bone—strapping muscles, black tattoos—except for an unmistakable difference. Their faces were so blurry as to be indefinable. It was like they had no faces at all.

  The zombies forced the captives to kneel in rows in the shallow water. Chevalier mindlessly barked orders and organized the affair. Already there must've been a hundred Taíno on their knees.

  Connor Hatch chuckled at the sight before him. Service. This was the heartstone times a thousand. Was it possible to actually harness all that power?

  The Spaniard drifted at the jinn's side, shining armor and all. A few human mercenaries followed them with leather sacks. The Bone Saints encircled the entire scene, many staying out of the water entirely. They kept eyes of warning on the neutralized arbiters at the outskirts.

  The clouds gathered around me as the sky itself grew angry.

  "Just like old times," said Connor to the conquistador. "Except instead of providing gold and cotton, this is a tribute of raw, unbridled power."

  The Spaniard's eyes flared. Connor nodded to one of his men. The mercenary dragged over a sack, reached in, and handed Connor a guava. The jinn snickered and smashed it to a pulp in his hand. He approached the first Coaybay resident and traced a symbol on his chest. He then placed a burning palm over the symbol. The native yelped. When the ifrit pulled his hand away, the mark was seared into the man's flesh.

  Connor stepped to the next subject, held out his hand, and accepted another fruit. One by one, Connor was subjugating the helpless spirits, and the only one on the entire island who could do anything about it was me.

  I set my wings and roared through the sky. The speed and sound created in my vacuum were that of a jet. Hundreds of heads below turned up to see me streak through the smoky sky. I landed in the center of the shallow lake on my hands and knees, wings outstretched above me.

  The entire island shook. The force sent the water away from me in a ring. It knocked some people over. It washed over Connor's open palm and put out the fire. It even crashed into the ranks of wights on dry land.

  That wasn't all of it. The ground continued to shake and shift. Everyone still on two feet widened their stance and braced themselves. The earthquake rent the land for a good seven seconds before calming.

  Slowly, I pushed to my feet. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The Wings of Night folded around me. The earth settled. The waves returned my way, gentler and shallower than before.

  "Connor Hatch," I pronounced loudly, "I demand your full, undivided attention."

  His eyes burned. Such a brazen show of force enraged him, but it did something else too. A chord of fear echoed through his hand. Just a tremor. A jinn known for his reserve was losing his temper.

  "Tear him apart!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  The Agua Fuego mercs were the only soldiers of sound mind and body. They were the first to act. Not only did they immediately take offensive positions, but they were armed with automatic weapons. Assault rifles, machine pistols, and cannons with slower firing rates but heavier loads.

  The rush of power flowing through my blood was intoxicating. I had so much confidence that all I did was walk straight at the unit of gunmen.

  They opened fire.

  Soft-noses. Hollow-points. Armor-piercing. Buckshot. A military-grade barrage of metal came at me like a hurricane, and I smiled.

  The projectiles shredded the water around me. Jets of liquid shot into the air. The rock floor of the lake shattered and clouded the water. Bullet after bullet tore right through my shadow armor like I wasn't even there.

  Of course it did. What else would you expect of shadow armor?

  I didn't even need to phase out of my physical form. I advanced on the mercenaries as their fire kept coming and I laughed. And then I broke into a sprint.

  The men couldn't believe it as I broke their ranks. I jutted an Uzi upward and made a South American blow his own head apart. I spun with the weapon and took down several Russians. When my mag ran dry I snatched a Kalashnikov from the water and fired it wet, mowing through the Carib drug runners. I cycled through their own weapons, man after man, and filled the lake with red.

  Of course, there was a lot more going on.

  The wights rushed in from the perimeter, coming at me from all sides. Leading the charge were their pets. Zombies. They might've been dead, but they sure as hell didn't belong here.

  In my heightened state, I could feel that now. Somehow, the water at my feet rippled out to them. Through them. I sensed strains of the Spaniard's magic, the same that infected the wights. The zombies weren't directly controlled by the wraith—they just had the scent of him.

  It was time to wash away that veil.

  A shadow burst at the feet of the nearest zombie. The water rolled up with it, taking hold of her. The dead woman fought against the bloody water, but it clutched her tight. My spellcraft weaved through rotten flesh. Rather than attack the voodoo that animated her, I struck the curse that veiled her presence. With a single splash, the zombie was announced to all of Coaybay as an interloper. The arbiters narrowed their white eyes and swooped in. Several passes chunked the zombie into inert body parts that sizzled and dissolved in the lake.

  The attack stunned the wights. Suddenly the arbiters had teeth. The Bone Saints weren't in immediate danger from them, but they had to consider the new battlefront.

  Amidst the confusion, drops of rain began dotting the lake with ripples.

  I raised both hands and drew in the darkness, sucking it into my every fiber, drawing it from the sky and the ground and the Nether itself. I reached through the falling water that soaked everything in sight. Then I flashed my palms out and ten shadows burst from the water and lanced as many zombies. They, too, were washed bare. More arbiters took to the air with raised hatchets.

  And so it went. Thrall after thrall fell before getting near me. The damage I inflicted stymied the advance of the Bone Saints themselves, but whenever a bold wight neared, I erected a wall of shadow and forced them backward out of the lake. My omnipotence was so realized it felt like playing Doom in god mode. I shoved and froze incoming threats at will, letting the arbiters clean up the scraps.

  Every single corpse, previously living or dead, was attended by the ghostly protectors of Coaybay. I'd seen it before but, up close and surrounded by it, it was awesome. A single strike rended a hole in the sky where a blue column of light ate away the physical remnants of the intruders.

  I punched. I shoved. I bowled through the battlefield. During the chaos, the earth rumbled again. It was an aftershock and a light show to go along with the most brutal Armageddon mosh pit ever.

  My bloodlust abated as the scene cleared. The Taíno were still on their knees in neat rows. Connor held the bag of guavas himself now. The entire battle, he'd been enlisting more subjects to his cause, like he could just cut and run and keep whoever he'd marked. But his army was in tatters now. The mercs were shredded. The undead, dead. The Bone Saints were the only group unscathed. I'd shoved them away in lieu of killing, and the arbiters still had trouble breaking their defenses. I was happy with that stalemate. It kept them out of my hair.

  The rain was beating down now. Streams of water rolled across the outskirts and joined the shallows. A coming flood. I leaned forward and skidded across the surface of the water. A wake fired up on either side as I passed. I was my own personal Jet Ski. Connor spun around in time for me to catch him in the
chest. I took him down hard under the surface.

  I wanted to end this. To bury him right here and now. He rolled and bucked against my strength, but it was more than just my strength now. I was a defender of Coaybay, cloaked and anointed. Even a jinn couldn't shrug that off. His arms beat against me as I held him below the surface.

  "The great Connor Hatch," I mocked, "drowned in a foot of water."

  A single explosion capped off at my side. Black powder, unlike any I'd heard before. The puzzle teased my overclocked mind for milliseconds before I felt the ball pierce the shadow armor and enter my gut. I attempted to dive away but I'd already been hit. I tumbled to my side in a splash. Connor resurfaced and gasped for air.

  The Spaniard stood firm with one arm extended, a worn glove wrapped tight around his matchlock pistol. My hand, at my side, came away with warm blood.

  Chapter 45

  The rain battered the three of us in the center of the valley.

  "I can't let you do that, brujo," said the wraith. Fresh smoke curled around the barrel of his pistol.

  I put pressure on the wound and regained my feet. My alligator boots sloshed in the shallows. Connor coughed for air and crawled away. I had to ignore him for now. I flanked away from him and toward the wraith, keeping my eyes on him, readying my shield.

  "We both know you don't have time to reload that," I groaned between clenched teeth.

  "True enough," he conceded. The Spaniard hitched the weapon back to his belt and drew his side-sword. It was a straight blade. A workmanlike predecessor of the rapier. Not as thin or ornamental, but with a similarly rounded handguard. The conquistador swiped the air twice, getting the feel for the weapon again.

  I'd seen the Spaniard duel with that blade only once before. In my brief visit to the Murk, a land of spirits that mirrors our world. A poltergeist had dogged me for days, growing more and more powerful by the hour. The Spaniard had cut him down with a single swipe.