The Graves of Saints (36 page)

Metzger and the other soldiers had finished saying goodbye to their dead comrade, and now they approached with grim and expectant faces.

‘You’ve locked us in here,’ Metzger said. ‘You might as well have killed us all.’

Octavian pulled away from Charlotte and took a step forward to face him. Sparks danced in his eyes and along his arms to his fingertips, and Allison realized that they had been there all along,
only fainter and barely noticeable. Flickers of gold and coppery red swirled around his hands.

‘You’ll recall I wanted to come alone,’ Octavian said firmly. ‘Even stole a helicopter to make it happen. Now here we are, Commander, and we all share the same
goal.’

Metzger glanced at Sergeant Galleti, who turned away to hide her frustration and fear.

‘True enough,’ the commander said. ‘But I’ll tell you this much, Peter. You’d better have a plan.’

Octavian cocked his head a bit, staring at the commander.

‘A plan,’ he said, as if musing on it.

‘Peter?’ Allison asked. ‘You do have some kind of plan, yes? Something other than just yelling “charge”?’

Octavian gave her his familiar, lopsided grin. ‘Well, there is something I’ve been thinking about since before we left Philadelphia, but I wouldn’t call it a plan.’

Charlotte gazed at him, mouth set in a tight line. Her hard exterior had crumbled for a second when he had rejoined them, but now it had begun to return.

‘It’s more like a prayer,’ Octavian said.

With that he turned away from them and knelt on the soft ground beneath the trees. The magic crackling around his hands grew brighter, the gold and copper sizzling the air as it expanded.
Allison and the others watched, first in wonder and then in surprise and consternation as he thrust his hands into the ground, the magic around his fingers allowing them to spear the earth, digging
deeply into the soil.

He spoke so softly that Allison doubted anyone else was close enough to hear him.

‘Come on, Keomany,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re paying attention.’

Bratteleboro, Vermont

Deeply asleep and dreaming of her mother, Tori felt herself being shaken. Her head swayed on her pillow and her eyelids fluttered as she returned to consciousness. She groaned,
reaching up to wipe at her mouth and cheek even before she recognized that the single voice in the room was addressing her.

‘. . . up,’ she heard. ‘Tori, please wake up.’

Blearily, she turned in the darkness of her bedroom to see that Amber Morrissey knelt on the edge of her bed. Amber reached over her and started to shake Cat and for a moment Tori thought she
might still be dreaming, because Amber didn’t seem to notice that she’d woken up.

‘What’s wrong?’ Tori breathed.

Amber recoiled, pulling away quickly, as if she had given up on waking Tori and was now startled to have accomplished it.

‘Oh, God, listen,’ Amber said, so anxious and ordinary that it was hard to accept that her features were an illusion, that beneath the glamour she was a beautiful monster.
‘Something’s going on. You’ve got to get up, both of you.’

Tori frowned but dragged herself up to a sitting position. She felt exhausted and fragile and just wanted to hide in her bed, but the world was in crisis and Tori and Cat had become inextricably
linked to it through Keomany and the events of the past couple of days. And through Gaea, of course. They would do anything for their goddess.

She reached out and shook Cat. Tori sometimes had trouble sleeping, but Cat slept as if she had an off switch and she’d been powered down for the night. It would take more than a gentle
nudge, so she shook harder.

‘Wake up!’ Tori said. ‘We’ve got trouble.’

Cat began to mumble and her eyes slitted open, none too happy.

‘We do, right?’ Tori asked, looking at Amber. ‘Have trouble?’

‘That’s just it, I don’t know,’ Amber said. ‘We’re not under attack or anything, but something’s happening with Keomany.’

‘I’m up,’ Cat said, tired but awake now. She looked from Tori to Amber and back, then threw back the covers. ‘Talk while I find pants.’

She didn’t have to go far; the jeans she’d shucked off were in a neat pile on the floor beside the bed. Cat grabbed them and began stepping into them, even as Tori rose and grabbed
the thin, pink-striped cotton robe that always hung behind the bedroom door. Sockless, she slipped her feet into the slim boots she wore while working. They were moving quickly now, but Tori still
didn’t know why.

‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘You don’t have anything more than “something’s happening”?’

‘Miles is talking to her,’ Amber said, and for just a moment her face seemed to flicker, as though her glamour was slipping and the wine-dark, terrible beauty of her true visage
might emerge. She was clearly troubled.

‘And?’ Cat said, irritated and unsympathetic. She pulled a sweatshirt on over the threadbare Mickey Mouse t-shirt she’d worn to bed, then grabbed a pair of old sneakers and
didn’t bother to lace them up.

‘Well, he
was
,’ Amber went on. ‘But now he says it’s like she’s talking to someone else. She’s babbling about healing wounds and about being a
harbinger of rebirth. That’s like a messenger, right?’

Tori glanced at Cat. ‘Something like that.’

Cat led the way out the bedroom door and down the stairs. Amber had left the front door open, the autumn air gusting through the screen. They pushed out into the night and let the screen door
slam behind them, hurrying into the orchard with the unfailing direction of those to whom it was home. It had rained and the ground was wet. Amber kept pace with them, though Tori knew she could
have flown ahead, and in a handful of minutes they were racing toward the enclosure in the clearing where they had left Keomany to continue to grow and become . . . whatever she was becoming.

Tori dashed into the clearing with her beaded hair jangling and Cat right behind her. She ran to the opening in the enclosure. The rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to break up, letting
through pools of moonlight. The thing that stood in one of those patches of silvery light looked at first like some exotic scarecrow.

‘She’s . . .’ Cat began, coming to a halt beside Tori, who had barely realized that she stood frozen in place.

‘Keomany?’ Tori ventured, frowning as she studied the figure before them.

Though she had been lying on the ground before, rooted to the soil, this strange manifestation of Keomany now stood, but she did not lift her head to look at them. If she had eyes, she did not
meet their gaze. The vines of her hair hung before her face and cast dark shadows that hid her features.

‘Hey,’ Cat said, taking two steps toward Keomany. ‘It’s us. Are you . . . are you in there?’

Tori turned back to Amber, who hadn’t come any further than the opening in the enclosure. ‘Was she like this before?’

‘No,’ Amber said. ‘This is new.’

Nodding, Tori moved closer to Keomany, but warily. The creature – her friend – had not so much as twitched since they had arrived. Her first thought, that it was some kind of
scarecrow, seemed unsettlingly accurate as she drew nearer and saw that Keomany’s new body seemed to have withered since just a few hours before. Her new skin looked dried and her hair
wilted, and an awful, hollow feeling touched her.

‘There’s something else,’ Amber said, voice tinged with worry.

Tori turned to her again. ‘What is it?’

‘Miles,’ Amber replied. ‘He’s not here.’

‘The ghost is gone?’ Tori asked.

‘Goddess,’ Cat whispered.

Tori turned around just in time to see Cat’s fingers brush Keomany’s cheek, which cracked like dried parchment with a puff of dust. The scarecrow’s head sagged in that
direction, then cracked under its own weight and fell to the ground with a dry thump.

With a gasp, Tori jumped back, staring at the shattered head. It reminded her of a long-abandoned wasp’s nest, split and broken and dried out.

‘Miles isn’t the only one who’s not here,’ Cat said, looking up at Tori.

‘Is she dead?’ Tori asked. ‘It doesn’t make any sense—’

‘Not dead,’ Amber said, crouching at the scarecrow’s feet now and poking around in the grass, revealing the thick roots that went deep into the ground. ‘Just gone, I
think. And wherever she went, it looks like Miles went with her.’

Languin, Guatemala

The trees seemed to stand guard over them as Octavian stood to face his allies. The magic around his fists diminished but still a frisson of static danced around his fingers and
raced up his arms, and he could feel the same electric crackle in his eyes. The magic simmered inside him, almost as if it had some awareness of its own and knew that combat was mere moments
away.

‘Commander,’ he said, turning to Metzger and his small cadre of TFV soldiers. ‘You need to arm Charlotte and Allison.’ He pointed at Sergeant Galleti, who was still
draped with guns, including a pair of assault rifles. ‘With those. They need as much Medusa ammunition as you can give them and the most firepower behind those bullets.’

‘What’re you planning?’ Metzger said. He glanced at the dirt that remained on Octavian’s hands and then at the place where the mage had been kneeling only moments before.
‘What the hell was all of that? I’m not some amateur at this, Peter. If you’ve got some strategy, share it with me. Let me help.’

Octavian glanced at Allison and then Charlotte before turning his focus back to Metzger. He pointed at the place just to the east of their position, where the giant Mayan death gods were still
emerging from the trench.

‘With all due respect, Leon, you’ve killed a lot of vampires but you’ve never faced anything like those,’ Octavian said. ‘This situation we find ourselves in now .
. . in this, you are an amateur.’

‘Now hold on—’ Metzger began, bristling at this embarrassment in front of his soldiers.

‘If I had half a dozen more Shadows, I might feel good about our chances of killing resurrected gods,’ Octavian went on. ‘But this is it. Us. I trust your people to be able to
protect themselves if those devil-bats come at them, and not to let the serpents eat them, at least as long as you still have bullets to defend yourselves with. But that’s a game of attrition
and you know it. What your people do best is kill vampires, so that’s what we’re going to do. It’s not pretty, and it’s not any kind of strategy. But you need to arm the
hell out of the only Shadows we’ve got and send them in there with the element of surprise and a shitload of Medusa toxin. Take away the ability of Cortez’s people to shapeshift, and
you and your people can kill them easily.’

Metzger scowled and looked away. ‘You can’t be . . .’ He rubbed at his eyes. ‘You’re serious? This is your plan? There have to be over a hundred vampires over
there. There’s no way two of your Shadows are going to be able to hit them all with toxin.’

‘I can improve their aim,’ Octavian said, watching as the magic misting from his eyes and dancing around his fingers turned a vivid cerulean blue. ‘And with luck, I can take
down the ones they don’t get to put a bullet into.’

‘Still . . .’ Sergeant Galleti said.

Metzger exhaled, nodding heavily. He held up a hand to Galleti.

‘All right,’ the commander said. ‘We don’t have a lot of options. I just hope you’re right and that when Cortez is dead, these breaches slow and you can seal them
up again.’

‘So do I,’ Octavian said, brushing the dirt from his hands, magic crackling around them.

Looking at Galleti and the other TFV soldiers, he almost told them that things might not be as grim as they seemed, that he had an ace in the hole. But he wanted them to fight for their lives,
without relying on magic to save them. He thought that Keomany had heard him, but he couldn’t be sure she had, or if she would be able to do anything to help. All he knew was that every one
of these breaches was like an open wound in the soul of the earth, and it had to be tearing Gaea apart.

She heard me
, he thought.
I felt her listening
.

And yet thus far the trees were only the trees, the ground only the ground. The best he could do was to follow his plan. No matter what else happened tonight, Cortez must die.

‘All right,’ Allison said, stepping over to Galleti and reaching out for a weapon. ‘Let’s do this, before something crawls out of that pit and eats us.’

September 24

Languin, Guatemala

Despite all she had been through with him in the scant days since they had met, Charlotte did not know Peter Octavian well. She understood that he was a warrior and a man of
honor, but that for a time in his life he had killed the way that vampires killed. She knew that some epiphany had made him seek a different path, and that though he was no longer a Shadow, he was
a powerful magician, or sorcerer, or mage, or whatever the hell word people felt like using this week. Charlotte had seen Octavian in action, and when he combined his magic with his determination
and skill as a warrior, he was a fearsome sight. Yet she was still just beginning to understand that he had more subtle magicks at his command as well.

Silent and swift, she set out from the cover of the trees toward the rings of chanting vampires with Allison on her left and Octavian on her right. Somehow, they managed to make her feel safe,
even though she was far from it. Charlotte knew a little about Allison’s background, enough to know that she had been a Shadow for a time measurable in years but not in centuries. She
wondered if Allison could still remember her first kiss or the sound of her mother’s laughter, if she could still recall the way her heart had quickened at a compliment or the excitement on
the day that school let out for summer. For Charlotte, such memories were fresh and vivid. Her high school graduation had been a little over a year before and, despite all that she had seen and
done in the intervening time – despite what she was – she still held on to a cherished fragment of her innocence, locked inside her like a rose under glass. She held a secret hope, one
she barely admitted to herself, that she could preserve that fragment forever.