Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (13 page)

“Bee!”

She halted, face flushed and curls in disarray. What I assumed was a pretty “Thank
you” in Taino dismissed the young man. After looking over me and Rory, he retreated
to his amused friends.

“Here you are, Cat! I was afraid to leave the chest because James Drake saw it and
threatened to burn all of Andevai’s clothes. If there’s one thing you can trust about
that man, it’s that he hates your husband and he could easily do it.”

“That’s two things,” said Rory.

She skewered him with a black gaze. “You get to haul it all the way back!”

“Where are we?” I had to pitch my voice to be heard above the rattle and song. “Why
are you talking to James Drake?”

“We’re in Sharagua. I’ve been divorced and cast off. And here you are, in the middle
of the areito on coronation night. I saw our meeting here in a dream. I’ve made arrangements
for us to travel with General Camjiata’s army to Iberia.”

I looked around. The opia had vanished.

Bee grabbed my wrist, yanking as if she meant to rip my arm out of its socket. “Cat!
We have to go! A carriage is waiting outside. The tide waits for no man, and not even
for me.”

“I’m not going with General Camjiata! Why is he in Sharagua?”

“For the coronation. Anyway, of course he wants me to return with him to Iberia and
help him win his war.”

“We can’t trust him!”

“The situation is not as simple as you think it is. Where did you get this?” With
her usual disrespect for my belongings, she pulled the basket around and began unlacing
it. “These sort of baskets are only ever used by behiques.” She pried open the top
of the basket, pulling back her hair with a hand so it didn’t fall in her eyes. “Cat,”
she said in an altered tone, “why do you have a skull?”

Blessed Tanit! Hair, skin, the usual appurtenances of flesh and life had vanished
to leave a bone-white skull. “It wasn’t a skull before. It was more like the head
of the poet Bran Cof, only more commanding and less rude.”

“Look!” Rory pointed to the arch.

A dozen foreigners pushed into view. Falcatas swung from their hips, half concealed
in the knee-length folds of their dash jackets. I recognized Captain Tira’s broad
shoulders and short black hair instantly, not to mention the way she swept the crowd
with a searching gaze.

“Gracious Melqart!” I said to the air. “Where is that cursed opia?”

“Seem a better offer now, don’ it?” he said behind me in a tone I could only describe
as gloating.

I spun to face him, clasping the basket shut. “How can I know you’ll keep your word?”

“I give yee me word of honor as a Taino man,” the opia said. “Besides that, which
is truly all yee need, I shall help yee get to Europa because I want the cacica’s
head to go to Haübey together with a message that he need to come home. So yee see,
gal, I’s helping me own self. Yee’s just the messenger I have at hand.”

Such sweet words:
help yee get to Europa
. But I had to rein in my galloping heart. “I promised Queen Anacaona to take her
head to Caonabo.”

“So yee shall. When yee give the head to Haübey, he shall bring it home to Caonabo.”

Blessed Tanit! I shuddered with hope. “What about my cousin? Her blood won’t give
her passage into the spirit world. She can only
cross through water. Anyway, the creatures of the spirit world hate her and want to
kill her.”

“Peradventure them in Europa do, but our ways are different in this part of the world.
As for the dreamer, the pools yee waded through shall give her passage. I shall take
yee back that same way.”

“Cat, who are you talking to?” demanded Bee.

“Can’t you see him?” Rory asked. “Are you
blind
, Bee?”

“Not too blind to kick you. Cat, who are you talking to?”

The opia wearing Vai’s face smiled in the smug way Vai had when he knew he was about
to be proven right. “Best make up yee mind quick quick, gal. Here they come.”

Captain Tira spotted me across the dancing crowd.

“Very well,” I said. “In exchange for you delivering us safely to Europa, I will deliver
the cacica’s head to Haübey with the message that he is free to return from exile.”

The opia replied with an impatient smile so unlike any of Vai’s expressions that I
knew I was seeing a glimpse of the man he had once been. Yet he twined his fingers
through mine just as Vai had done and drew me back the way we had come.

“Rory, get the chest,” I called over my shoulder. “Bee, are you coming with us, or
going with the general? You better come with us. I want you to. Please.”

“Of course I’m coming with you!”

We danced and dodged around revelers oblivious to the chase. They smiled and clapped
to include us. As we climbed the narrow path toward the cave, a rifle went off, followed
by a rousing cheer from the crowd, who evidently thought it part of the celebration.

We had no sooner ducked into the cave mouth than about twenty Iberians ran up in our
wake. The opia vanished in a scatter of sand. I drew my sword.

“Stay back,” I said to the soldiers. “Rory, take off your clothes and give them to
Bee. That will surprise them.”

“Blessed Tanit!” cried Bee. “Don’t take off… you’re not really going to…”

She broke off with an audible gasp as Rory stripped. The soldiers halted in confusion.

“You two go on,” I said, keeping my gaze on the soldiers. “Bee,
you’ll have to haul the chest when he changes. Stop and wait for me once he’s a cat.
Go!”

They went. The soldiers could have rushed us, but the gleam of my sword and Rory’s
unexpected disrobing gave them pause.

“I’m reliably informed by the locals that my sword is an object of power known as
a
cemi
, inhabited by the spirit of my mother,” I said in my most amiable tone. “Tara Bell
was an officer in the Amazon Corps. Perhaps you knew her or fought beside her.”

Captain Tira pushed through, attended by two men carrying lamps.

“Catherine Bell Barahal, the general wish to speak with yee.”

“Then why has he sent soldiers after me, if it’s to be a friendly chat?”

“I reckon he thought yee might be a bit recalcitrant.” She gestured.

Four of the soldiers broke ranks to approach me.

I thrust at the leftmost, pricking his forearm so he yelped and dropped his rifle.
As it clattered down, I pressed in past him to jam the hilt of my sword into the chin
of the next man, then swung away before he could counter. The third man clubbed at
me with his rifle, but I leaped past him and shoved the fourth man into range of the
blow.

The captain shouted a command. Rifles leveled, pointing at me.

“Stand down, gal!” cried Captain Tira.

A gust of wind roared through the cave with a squall of blown sand. The lamps whooshed
out. A rifle went off. The sting of its powder lanced up my nostrils. A hand fastened
on my shoulder. I twisted away, grabbed the arm, and bit. The man shrieked, reeling
away. Men shouted as the lamps crashed to the ground and shattered with a gush of
oil that abruptly flamed into bright fire.

The scent of guava flooded the air. A person who looked like me raced past them out
the cave mouth. To my left stood a third opia looking just like me. Everyone started
shouting at once. In the confusion I dashed for the back of the cave. Another gust
of wind doused the burning oil, drenching the cave in darkness. I thudded into a man’s
body which I knew instantly as Vai’s.

“Yee brother and cousin is safe. Follow me.”

We splashed through the string of caves up which we had so recently climbed. I stumbled
more than once, stubbing my toes on rocks. Blood dribbled down my foot to smear the
ground.

When we passed from the mortal world into the spirit world I did not know. But in
the dense night of the cave, a big cat’s body nudged up beside me. A long incisor
grazed my hip as my hand slipped across his moist nose. He licked me with a raspy
tongue. I giggled.

“My feet are coated with slime!” exclaimed Bee in the darkness. “It’s disgusting.”

I laughed.

“Shh!” The opia pulled me close, lips pressed to my ear. “We’s not out of danger.”

Even knowing I was grasping a stranger—a dead man!—I could not stifle the tremor of
arousal I felt at the familiar shape I had my arms around, his strong shoulders, his
solid chest. He even had the sawdust-and-sweat scent of Vai as well as the mouthwatering
fragrance of guava.

“Then it’s best if we hurry,” I whispered, my irritation at my body’s unwanted reaction
making my voice a hiss.

“We can bide a few breaths here, gal, as long as we bide quiet-like. The maku soldiers
cannot venture any deeper into the cave. ’Tis a small reward to ask that yee kiss
me, don’ yee reckon?” he murmured in Vai’s coaxing voice. His lips brushed my mouth.

I stiffened my entire body, as Vai had done when my sire had teased him with my form
in the coach. “I don’t reckon. Not with my brother and cousin right next to me! And
the cacica’s head in the basket.”

“She cannot see with the basket closed up tight, can she?”

“They warned me that opia are dangerous spirits. Why do you appear to me as my husband?”

“Because it vex yee,” he whispered, laughter in his tone. “And I like yee when yee
is vexed.”

A little stab of laughter shook me. “Who are you?”

He rubbed his cheek against mine, the bristle of beard making me shiver. “Just one
kiss like that one yee gave me in yee room in Expedition, when yee thought I was him.
Don’ yee think yee owe me?”

“You haven’t gotten us to Europa yet.”

“For the chance of it, gal.”

“Let me see the face you wore when you were a living man.”

He chuckled. “I like the stubborn way yee never give up.”

Blessed Tanit, but I took the chance of it. Rory didn’t care, the
cacica’s head was safe in the basket, and it was too dark for Bee to see anything.
I pressed my mouth to his. For a single searing kiss, I pretended I was holding Vai.
It was a good kiss, strong and sweet.

“Cat, where are you? What is going on?” Bee’s hand brushed my shoulder like the flutter
of a feather across my skin. Her fingers dug into my upper arm. “
What are you doing?
”

His hand slid down my arm and caught hold of my fingers as he stepped back.

“Cat, there is someone else here with us,” Bee said ominously.

“He’s an opia. He’s helping us so we can do something for him. Help me carry the chest.”
I hoisted one end of the chest by its rope handle. “It was very clever of you to bring
the chest, Bee.”

“Cleverness had nothing to do with it. It was pure desperation. I’d already hidden
the other two when Drake caught me with this one. The moment he saw Andevai’s dash
jackets, I saw murder in his eyes. Sartorial murder. I couldn’t bear the thought of
all that expensive fabric and fine tailoring blazing into ash.”

“How came you to have all our gear?”

“I got all three chests from Lucretia before I left for Sharagua. I told her I would
deliver them to you. Gracious Melqart, Cat. I must ask, how many fashionable dash
jackets can one man own?”

“I haven’t yet had the leisure to make an accounting!”

We moved deeper into the night of the spirit world. Vast roots tangled around us.

“By the way, I’m sorry to mention it, but General Camjiata took your father’s journals.”

This newest betrayal scarcely scratched my already jangling nerves. “Of course he
would! At least I know he’ll keep them safe.”

“We need to go quiet here,” murmured the opia as we began to descend. “For I would
not want any to hear me who might put a stop to the business we’s about.”

“Shh,” I said to Bee. My breathing grew ragged as we made our way down within the
tree, for I both hoped and feared that I would again grasp the latch and see into
the coach where Vai was my sire’s prisoner. But all we did was descend step by step,
me holding the opia’s hand as he guided us and Bee linked to me by the chest. Rory
padded at the rear.

I smelled the mire of earth and heard the moan of a conch shell being blown. I heard
the thump and patter of batey and the cheering shouts of the crowd as one of the players
scored. Yet we did not walk into the ceremonial plaza where I had been before.

Down we went and down farther yet, past the charcoal scent of a cook fire and a smell
of pepperpot that made me lick my lips with hunger. Rory gave a rumble of displeasure,
reminding me that he was hungry, too.

“Don’ stop.” The opia fastened his fingers tightly to mine. “We shall go deeper, into
the realm of the old ones that lie below all.”

“What is that voice? Where are we going?” Bee whispered.

I had no words with which to answer her. The black void around us was impenetrable.
Warm water tickled over my sandaled feet and streamed off. A salty wind with a bellows’
breath hissed against my face like the exhalation of a beast so huge it cannot be
seen or touched.

Was this what it meant to crawl into the maw of Leviathan?

I felt as if the gullet of a beast were squeezing around me. Sand filtered into my
eyes. I blinked, trying to wet away its scrape.

Beneath my sandals the ground crunched. Glimmers of light shot through the earth like
sparks strewn through sand. The walls took on an amber gleam. Rory loped ahead toward
a low cave mouth. The shush and sough of a stormy sea sounded from outside. But I
did not taste the salt of the ocean. Instead, when I licked my lips, I swallowed smoke.

The opia stopped.

Bee and I set down the chest.

She stared at him. “Blessed Tanit! He looks exactly like Andevai!”

He looked her up and down in a way Vai had never once examined her. A sting of jealousy
made my heart flame, for unlike every other man I had ever met, Andevai had never
shown the least partiality for Bee, not as all the rest did the moment they laid eyes
on her voluptuous beauty.

“’Tis a shame I can go no farther and thereby get to know yee better, dream walker,”
he said to Bee. “Ask from the old ones that which they owe to yee.”