Highway to Hell (30 page)

“I have a shirt in my backpack.”

He smiled slightly. “Of course you do.” Fishing in the pack, he found the shirt that Hector had loaned me, and dropped it over my shoulders. I began to feel better, and even if I still didn't understand Hector's role in all this—Mysterious but sage old man?
Brujo?
Red herring?—I wasn't going to look this denim gift horse in the mouth.

Henry rubbed his head as if it ached. “Okay. I know I came late to this party. But I have a
lot
of questions.”

“Join the club,” I said.

He paced as he shot off a rapid-fire inquisition. “If there's more than one chupacabra, does that mean there's more than one demon? Does that swarm mean there are a bajillion demons? How are we going to fight that?”

The only way I was going to be able to sort through the junk drawer of info in my head was to take each piece out and examine it individually. It was too overwhelming otherwise.

“I think it's all one demon.” I turned that nugget over, mentally testing its shape. Yes. It felt true.

“One demon that can be in more than one form at a time?” Justin asked.

“How can it have a form at all?” The inquiry volleyed back to Henry. “Isn't a demon, by definition, incorporeal? From the Greek
daemon
, which means ‘spirit.’

I slid my arms through the sleeves of the shirt. “This is still just a working theory. A demon's natural state is spirit, like you said. Nonsubstance. And then you have human beings”—I knocked on the bench beneath me—“and
everything we can see and hear and touch. Our natural state is matter. Substance.”

Henry nodded. “I'm with you so far.”

“This is the easy part,” warned Justin.

I went on. “If a demon wants to affect our world, it requires power. The amount depends what it wants to do. Influencing something nonphysical, like someone's emotions or mental state—which is probably how you're used to thinking about spirits, Henry—takes less power. Directly affecting the physical takes lots more power. Usually not cost effective.”

“Actually
becoming
physical is the most costly of all. It takes huge energy, because it's transforming a stable
non-
substance into something that's not a natural state—matter. It's like chemistry: it takes energy to go against the balanced equation.”

Henry's eyes had glazed over. “No offense, but I became a theology major so I wouldn't have to deal with the physical science stuff.”

“I'm not sure you can separate the two.” I'd had almost a year since my first eerie experience to mull this over. “The universe is about balance. Molecules want to be neutral and grab up atoms that balance their charge. Our nerves fire because of positive and negative potentials in the neurons. Too much emotional high or low and we become manic or depressive.”

I wrapped the warm, dry shirt more tightly around me. “This is what I think. Good and Evil are opposing forces, and they have to stay balanced or everything breaks down. Maybe that's why God can't just smite serial killers or stop earthquakes.”

“Can't?” Henry raised a brow.

“Fine. Doesn't. Because Team Good cares about the consequences, respects what breaking the rules would do to existence.”

Here I did think about my vision, opened the lid on the box where I'd tucked it for now, to be fully analyzed later, when I had the luxury of time to freak out. “It's the nature of Evil to destroy. Team Evil wants power at any cost. They'll annihilate humans, each other, even the universe.”

Justin blinked. “I can't decide if that's brilliant or deranged.”

Henry's expression was assessing but otherwise impenetrable. He seemed to see past my intellectualization to the disquiet left by the nightmare. “You got all that from a dream?”

“Well, and that Matt Damon movie
Dogma
, where that one demon planned to end creation just to get what he wanted.”

The roll of his eyes broke the tension. “Nice.”

More used to my illustrative style, Justin moved on to the important stuff. “So, your theory is that our demon, the chupacabra, steals power for transformation through blood. That's why its prey have gotten bigger, and it seems to be multiplying.”

“Right. Ol' Chupy is stuck underground. Somehow it gets a little bit of itself out of its prison in material form. It's like a space probe. It can go out, feed, and beam back the energy to the mother ship, because it's really all the same entity. There's an alchemy principle that Lisa says and I can't remember.”

Justin supplied it. “As above, so below.”

“That's it.”

Henry chewed on that. “And it could generate all those mosquitoes because they're small. A thousand bugs might have the same mass as one chupacabra.”

“Pretty good,” I said. “For someone who'd rather give up women than take a physics class.”

He didn't take the bait. “So how did the demon get trapped?”

It figured that eventually he'd get to a question for which I didn't have an answer. “Maybe it's always been here. Since before history. I think that artifact in the museum wasn't put in the ground as part of a burial. It was put there for the same reason as Doña Isabel's shrine—to keep the demon contained.”

“‘Before history’ isn't the same thing as ‘always,’ ” said Justin.

“What do you want? Last night I was still trying to convince myself it was a giant squid.”

While we'd been talking, I'd finished the bottle of Gatorade and managed to stop shaking. Even better, my legs had decided to work again, which was nice of them, considering I hadn't abused them so badly since high school gym class.

Once I was on my feet and sure I was going to stay there, I looked at the guys. “Ready? I want to get back to town and—” I broke off, my attention caught by something rhythmic and familiar. “Are those hoof beats?”

“Yeah.” Justin grabbed my backpack. “Let's go look.”

Instead of going out via the path, which would take us
around the grotto's hill and back to the car, the three of us hurried through a gap in the trees that shaded the shrine, and found ourselves in the pasture, facing east.

The wind had picked up, and whipped my hair into my eyes. I pushed it back and saw a horse, galloping riderless across the desert dunes. I recognized the root-beer brown of the horse's coat, and saw she had an empty saddle on her back. “That's Sassy!”

“Who?” Justin asked.

“It's Doña Isabel's horse.” The mare had kept going, headed—if I had my bearings right—back toward the barn.

Justin's mouth tightened and we exchanged grim looks. “Henry, maybe you'd better bring the car.”

Henry ran to the Escort, and Justin and I hurried to backtrack Sassy's path, following the dirt road. As we neared a cluster of palm trees, I felt a pull of urgency and sped up the pace as much as my tired legs would stand.

Doña Isabel lay crumpled on the ground, unmoving. Her hair was disheveled and her clothes tangled from her fall. I dropped to my knees beside her, relieved to see her breathing.

She stirred as I bent close.
“El Diablo,”
she murmured.
“No vi que no esta muerta.”

Justin knelt on her other side. “Don't move, Doña Isabel. We'll call an ambulance.”

Her eyes opened and focused on my face. “Magdalena.
¿Usted entiende? Está en la sangre.
”

I heard tires on the dry road, then the slam of a door and running footsteps. “Is she okay?” asked Henry as he joined us.

Justin frowned. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

“No!” Doña Isabel shook her head emphatically. “No hospital. I cannot leave. The storm is coming.”

She tried to sit, and I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don't get up. You need to get checked by a doctor. You fell off your horse, and at your age …”

Her black gaze was sharp as a raven's, which put to rest my fears of a head injury. “My bones are old but not broken.” Grabbing Justin's arm, she beckoned to Henry as well. “Help me up. You may take me home, then call the doctor.” When the guys stood unmoving, she gestured imperiously. “Come along. The day is fading.”

After a silent conference of significant glances, we gave in. Justin and Henry helped her up, and she allowed them to assist her into the front passenger seat of the Escort. Her white-knuckled grip on their arms was the only indication that she wasn't merely out for an afternoon stroll.

Justin closed her door, and I started to open the back one, then paused.
“Sangre
means ‘blood,’ right?”

“Right,” said Henry.

It's in the blood. Nothing enigmatic about that.

Doña Isabel tapped on the glass, and when she had our attention, swept her hand to indicate the road home. We scurried to obey. The day, as she said, was fading.

C
onnie was waiting when we arrived at the house; I'd called her from the car, and she'd called Doña Isabel's doctor. I'd also left a voice mail for Zeke, and a text message for Lisa, trying to cover my bases.

The matriarch was whisked away in a flurry of activity. When the furor died down, Henry, Justin, and I found ourselves in the front parlor, with the prim antiques and the staid family portraits. The guys sat—carefully—while I paced and scratched at mosquito bites.

“Aren't you exhausted?” Justin asked.

“I think better when I move.” I certainly had no shortage
of things to think about. I played my dream over in my mind, searching for any clue. The problem was, there were so many parts of it that I wasn't ready to revisit.

“Hey, Justin. What does
Ruach
mean?”

He had picked up a book from a side table, and looked up from it in surprise. “That's very random.”

“Just something I heard and I can't remember where.”

“Ruach
is Hebrew for ‘the breath of God.’ ” Henry's brows knit, making his nose look, if possible, even more Roman than usual.
“Ruach Elohim.
Literally, the Breath of God. Figuratively, the divine spirit of creation. Where did you hear that?”

My mind cleared, relieved to attribute the word to something I should know. “I remember now.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
”

I turned to resume my pacing, and bumped into a chair. Something clattered to the floor, and I thought at first I'd broken some priceless antique. Other than Doña Isabel, that is. But it was only the matron's cane.

“Dragonflies again.” They were carved down the length of her walking stick; I remembered seeing them the day we'd met.

“What dragonflies?” asked Justin. I hadn't realized I'd spoken aloud. “The ones in the pasture eating the mosquitoes? That's what dragonflies do.”

Henry sank lower in his chair. “We used to call them mosquito hawks back home.”

“No. I'm seeing them everywhere—on the stained glass in the chapel, on the weather vane on the tower.” The motif had worked its way into my subconscious as well, appearing
with significance in my dreams. “The first day we came to the house, Zeke said something about it being a kind of good-luck symbol.”

Justin frowned. “That's a new one to me.”

Connie reappeared, ending the discussion. She eyed the three of us with disapproval, then summoned me with a nod, like an executioner. “Doña Isabel wants to see you. The boys can wait here.”

I followed meekly behind her as she led the way out of the room and up the stairs. On the second floor, at the end of a long hall, she tapped on a large wooden door, then stepped back so I could enter.

The room was sunny, with windows facing the water and a décor that reflected the sea and sky—driftwood browns and transparent blues. The heavy, dark four-poster bed didn't fit the theme, but it was so massive, it had probably been there for generations. Gauzy curtains softened the frame, and Doña Isabel reclined against a mountain of fluffy white pillows.

Her eyes were closed and her breathing even, so I took the opportunity to investigate the numerous prescription bottles on the nightstand. My gran claims that the older you get, the more chemistry it takes to keep you running. But Ta-moxifen and OxyContin? I didn't think those were in your average geriatric medicine cabinet.

“Did your grandmother teach you to snoop in a lady's private belongings?”

I straightened and found Doña Isabel watching me. “So you really are unwell.”

She turned her gaze to the windows, where the water was gray and uneasy. “No. I am dying.” My alarm made her laugh dryly. “Not right this minute.”

“That's a relief.” I was still frustrated by her blind denial, but now I understood. Admitting the demon was loose meant admitting she was weakening. “You don't have to apologize, you know.”

“Apologize?” Indignation strengthened her voice. “For what should I apologize?”

Her reaction evaporated some of my goodwill. “For hiding your head in the sand while people's lives and livelihoods were at stake?”

“I have not been hiding my head. I have been in constant prayer and meditation. I went out this afternoon to …” She trailed off, setting her jaw.

“To what? Check the shrine yourself?” She smoothed her sheets with a trembling hand, and I pressed the issue. “I know what you did there. The spell. Why be so secretive?”

She gave an unladylike snort. “I do not need to make my confession to you.”

Strangling a dying woman might invalidate my membership in Team Good, so I kept my hands by my sides. “Confess what? That you stopped a monster from slaughtering your cattle? Trapped a demon that had gotten a toehold in this world?”

“But I sinned in the process. Which is why the protection did not last.”

“It did, Doña Isabel.” I moved then, and covered her hand with mine. Her skin felt cool and paper thin. “It lasted because of your faith and commitment. But the demon has found a new way out, and you have to help us stop it again.”

She shook her head, still staring out the window. “I am too old. When I die, the Church will get this land and a new protection will be in place.”

“Doña Isabel, it can't wait.” She glared at me, greatly outraged. “I mean, I hope you live a long time yet, but the chup— the demon is multiplying every time it appears.”

Lying back, she closed her eyes. “Then you must do something about it. You and your sorcerous friend. I cannot help you. My weakness will only corrupt your efforts.”