Revenant

TWENTY-SIX

I had exchanged one type of paranormal cold for another and spent more of my own blood. I was free of Rui—at least until he wanted to try to track me by the song of my bones again—though I wasn’t sure how well that would work now that he no longer had his flute or a resonant connection to me. I had the impression he’d have to be pretty close to listen for me in the song of Portugal’s Grid, so the farther I got from him, the better my chances. I could have put an end to his tracking option by breaking a few of my bones, I supposed, but I was damaged enough as it was and now I was also bleeding from an amateur amputation. While I do heal preternaturally fast, I didn’t think that was going to save me today.

But without Rui’s traps and connections, I could drop deeper into the Grey and look for energetic signs that might get me closer to Quinton and Carlos faster. I couldn’t travel far or for long in the Grey even at the best of times—it was chilling, exhausting, and dangerous—and right now I was vulnerable. I needed to get back to the comparatively safe world of the normal—safe, that is, once I was far enough away from Rui.

Tired, shaking, and worried about what might come after me next, I crawled through the temporacline, swarmed by ghosts, until I seemed to be outside the current building. Then I slipped out of the frozen blade of time and dropped deeper into the Grey, awash in a silver fog of nascent souls and shrieking phantoms following the trail of my blood. I’d never bled in the Grey before and I hadn’t been sure that every hungry thing within it would come drooling after me like a pack of hunting dogs. I probably should have guessed, though. I needed to get out again, quickly, before anything nastier than a few ghosts caught up to me.

I could see the wild tangles of energy that were humans and mages rushing around on my right and the sweep of distant darkness that was probably the river. It was too far for me to reach. I looked in another direction—northeast, I thought. And there, like a ridiculous beacon, was a blazing pink line that led to a frantic coil of brilliant blue shot with arcs of orange and red. I couldn’t think of anyone else in all of Portugal to whom I would have a pink familial connection aside from Quinton. I fixed the shape in my sights and moved toward it as fast as I could, rising from the Grey and dragging a train of bleeding, biting specters as I went.

I tumbled out in a cold rush of blood-gorged ghosts, into the falling dusk at the edge of a thick planting of trees. Quinton had been crouching in the undergrowth and turned to look for the source of the whimpering sound I made as I hit the ground and felt the normal world jar my aching, abused bones and joints. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it was enough. His expression was grim as he prepared to do any violence necessary to get to me . . . and there I was without his having to manage any at all.

Quinton threw himself forward, scooping me to his chest as we both sprawled on the ground. “Harper. Harper,” he kept saying, kissing my face as if he hadn’t seen me in years. “I thought they were killing you. I felt—horrible things. Dear God, are you all right?”

“No,” I whispered. My voice was still a wreck. I held up my bleeding hand. “Lost a finger, screamed myself hoarse.”

Quinton grabbed my hand and wrapped something around the end of my chopped-short finger—some cloth that he tightened into a makeshift tourniquet with a pen and a piece of duct tape from his pockets.

“I felt that. The finger. Who did it? Rui? My father?”

“I did.”

He stared at me, confused and a little freaked-out. “Why?”

“Long story. Get me out of here. Please.”

I barely managed to keep on my own bare feet and not need to be carried away. Quinton led me down a hillside and out to the edge of a road where a tiny car was parked. It barely had room inside for two adults and a box of chocolate, but since we had no chocolate, we fit.

I felt dizzy. I patted the door pillar of the passenger seat as Quinton drove. “This . . . ? How?”

“Stole it.”

“Hidden depths . . .”

“Not so hidden. You always knew I was shady.”

I nodded and my head felt wobbly on my neck.

After a half hour or so, he pulled the car over and loosened the tourniquet for a few minutes before tying it back down and driving on. “You’re in bad shape, but I don’t want you to lose the hand to gangrene. There’s no medical kit in this car or I’d do more.”

“Superglue?” I suggested.

“Not on a bleeder like that—the glue won’t hold in that volume of liquid with no flesh to pull over it—the whole tip’s gone. The vein needs a couple of stitches first. Then glue. Jesus . . . You did that to yourself?”

“Had to. Later.” I faded out and fell asleep, uncomfortably close to not waking up.

I did come to again in lamp-lit night, curled in a white bed that smelled like bleach. My hand throbbed and felt swollen, but I couldn’t see much because someone had bandaged it up. Quinton was snoozing in a chair nearby and woke with a start when I moved in the bed. We weren’t in a hospital, but the room had a feel of medical competence and I wondered where we were. Then I wondered why I was feeling a lot less muzzy than I’d been when I fell asleep. Just getting some rest and a clean bed wouldn’t have had that strong an effect in the face of the damage I’d taken.

“Hey,” Quinton murmured, pulling his chair up to the side of the bed so he could lean closer to me. His eyes were bloodshot, his face puffy, and his hair was a disarrayed mess that stuck out in dirty spikes.

I tried to reply, but all that came out was a breathy echo. “Hey.”

He put his head near mine and picked up my uninjured right hand, holding it loosely in his as if he thought he would hurt me with any greater pressure. I tried to squeeze his hand in reassurance, but mine ached and felt bloated, resisting closing much farther.

“Don’t try,” he said. “Everything’s a little swollen and you’ll feel like you’ve got arthritis all over for a while. So, right now, here’s the situation: We’re in a little city called Borba about halfway between Évora and the Spanish border. Me, I’d call it a town, but they say it’s a city and the locals are a pretty fierce bunch. It’s a wine-making area and this week they’re swearing in a bunch of newly elected municipal officials before the crush starts. It’s pretty busy here this time of year with the wine business and the marble quarries, so we don’t really stand out much. Even your injury doesn’t look too weird to a doctor who patches up vineyard workers and quarrymen all the time. He was a little annoyed we didn’t have the fingertip, but he didn’t have to remove any more of the finger, so once it heals up, you’ll be pretty normal. Though it’s going to be a bitch to relearn how to type.”

I tried to laugh and it came out sounding more like a steam radiator with a bad pressure valve.

“Medically, the doctor says the rest of the injuries almost look like a case of the bends or an industrial accident. He’s kind of curious how you got them and not completely satisfied with my bullshit explanations about falling into a quarry, but it’s not like you’ve got a bullet hole in you, so he’s not pushing. I think he kind of wants us gone before whatever trouble we’re obviously in comes knocking on his door. And he gave you a couple of pints of blood—lucky for you I’m a good donor. Also a whole lot of other fun stuff like antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and pain meds—not to be taken with wine, he was careful to tell me. Apparently that can be a problem around here.”

I nodded some more.

“The estate is about an hour’s drive from here, but it would take most of a day to walk it. I had to ditch the car, so we’re going to have to find alternate transportation to meet Carlos. So . . . how are you feeling?”

“Tired,” I whispered.

“Too tired to move?”

“Not if it puts more distance between us and your dad’s monstrous friends.” The length of my speech dried my throat to a rough soreness. I coughed a little and Quinton played nursemaid with a glass of water.

When I finally pushed the water away, Quinton closed his eyes and shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t stopped me. I wish I’d shot him dead last year.”

“No, you don’t.”

“None of this would have happened if he were dead.”

I tried to shrug and ended up wincing instead. “Maybe.”

“I don’t see any way to end this without killing him. And if I have the opportunity, I’ll take it this time.”

“OK.”

He gave me a sardonic look. “Oh, now you’re all right with it.”

“It’s not the same.”

“How?”

I shook my head since my throat was too sore for me to want to make long explanations. “Later.” I shifted in the bed, trying to find a way out of it. I didn’t have any great desire to leave the comfortable nest of blankets, except that something Rui had said nagged at me. “We have four days. Three.”

“What?” Quinton asked, frowning as he helped me out of the bed.

“Rui . . . said four days.” I had to pause and drink again. “Don’t know when that clock started running.”

“We’d better assume today was Day One.”

“Still . . . ?”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “Barely, but yes.” He put his hand up as I sat on the edge of the bed. “Hang on. . . . Let me get you some clothes.”

I made a face, imagining the condition my dress must have been in by now and wondering if I’d bled on it. Quinton fetched his pack and pulled out a slightly wrinkled button-down shirt and a pair of cotton trousers. He offered them to me, saying, “Your stuff was pretty trashed. I saved everything from your pockets, but I’m a little short on lingerie.”

I sighed—which hurt but still felt better than not breathing—and took the clothes. “I can go commando.”

Quinton is shorter than I, but he’s broader in the shoulders and men’s shirts are always longer in the arms and torso than a woman’s shirt of the same chest size, so the top wasn’t a problem—especially since I’m small-breasted, so there was no chance of inappropriate “barn door” syndrome with the buttons. The pants were a bit of a strange fit, but the biggest problem was their length. I rolled them up to midcalf and figured the heat would account for my lack of fashionable style. I looked at my bare feet and dreaded having to go very far without shoes. Mine were probably still on the floor of Rui’s charnel house and I wasn’t going back for them.

“Just a minute,” Quinton said, and slipped out of the room while I restored the contents of my pockets. He came back quickly with a pair of sandals with insoles that looked like an aerial view of clear-cutting.

“One of the nurses gave them to me,” Quinton said, seeing the look on my face. “They’re cheap, but they’ll get us out of here. We can’t afford to sit and wait for the shops to open.”

We didn’t have the luxury of being picky, so I put them on and we slipped out of the clinic.

The clinic was housed in a long, low two-story building that was faced in white marble. Most of the buildings I could see along the narrow street were white or pale pink. Even those that weren’t faced in marble were painted similar colors so the whole town glowed in the moonlight reflected off the pale buildings. Sounds of revelry came from several of the taverns and restaurants open farther down the road.

It was Friday—Saturday now—and I’d lost track of the days completely since I’d arrived. There’d been no chance to rest or be bored. I’d hit the ground running, and the sound of people having a good time reminded me of all the dinners I hadn’t had with Quinton in the past eight months or more before we’d gone to rescue Soraia. It seemed like a week had already passed since I’d arrived in Portugal, but it was only three days and I was as hungry as if I hadn’t eaten the whole time. There really was no time to stop to see whether any of the bars had food available. We needed to get to Amélia’s estate as quickly as possible.

Quinton steered us away from the main highway and down a road that became increasingly industrial and dusty. The road came to a traffic circle and the buildings thinned, leaving miles of dusty white road winding between fenced yards filled with slabs of white and rose marble gleaming in the moonlight.

Just beyond the circle was a driveway leading into one of the stone yards. A dust-covered truck stood idling in the driveway as the driver walked around it, using a flashlight to search the underside of the large, empty flatbed. He muttered to himself and reached to grab something, shaking it with a muffled rattle.

The man lay down on the ground and tried to move something while still holding his flashlight. Something slipped and the light broke with a crash. The driver rolled out from under the flatbed, shaking off debris and swearing. “Filho da puta!” he added, kicking the nearest tire and drumming his fists on the flatbed.

Quinton and I exchanged a glance and walked toward him while Quinton pulled a small flashlight from his pocket. “Hey, do you need a hand?” Quinton called out as we drew near and turned on his flashlight, aiming the beam at the ground.

The man whirled, wide-eyed, not expecting anyone to be walking along this road after midnight. He stared at us and at the flashlight for a second. “Sim! Yes! I could use an extra hand.” His English was good enough, but his accent was thick. “You have a light.”

“Yup,” said Quinton, stopping next to the driver. “What’s the problem?”

“This pile of shit—the lift is jamming. I had the bolt out and then one of the scissor arms fell off. . . .”

The conversation became an exchange of technical terms that meant nothing to me, but Quinton understood. And that led to a few minutes of talking, then lying on the ground under the flatbed with flashlights and tools and cursing. Finally both men were satisfied with something and got back to their feet, dusting themselves off and smiling at each other as if they’d slain a troll with butter knives.

“Thank you!” the driver said, offering his dusty hand to Quinton. “I would have been here all night without you.”

Quinton shrugged. “It wasn’t much trouble, once you could see it.”

“It was a lot of trouble for me. Obrigado. What can I do to thank you?”

“Don’t know. Where are you headed?”

“Vila Viçosa. It’s not very far down this road, but I’m glad I don’t have to walk it.”

“Well, we do. Can you give us a lift?”

The driver looked me over and made a “not bad” face as if I were a bit of livestock he was considering. “Sua namorada?”

Quinton shook his head. “No. She’s my wife.”

The driver stiffened and stood up straighter. “Oh. Desculpe. Sorry. Uh, yes . . . I can take you to Vila Viçosa. Where you need to go?”

“As far as you feel comfortable taking us.”

The driver nodded and walked up to the cab to open the doors. “Get in.”

We scrambled aboard. I sat on Quinton’s lap in the narrow cab while the guys made small talk. I fell asleep as we passed through an endless plain of holes where the marble quarries had been carved into the earth. We parted company from the driver a few miles down the road in Vila Viçosa, outside the Palace of the Dukes of Braganza and walked through the early-morning silence toward the industrial edge of town, once again. As the sun was rising, we negotiated another lift with a man who was delivering sausages to Ciladas—the next town closer to our destination.

The route twisted along a narrow highway through dry, tree-covered hills with the rising sun in our eyes and the dusty smell of olive and cork trees mingled with the odor of cured meat as the breeze twisted through the open windows of the delivery van’s front seats. I was considering a raid on the man’s cargo almost the whole time—my empty stomach now becoming insistently loud. I wasn’t sorry to see the last of the too-redolent truck when we reached the tiny outpost that turned out to be Ciladas.

I felt we’d been transported back to some wide bit of the road in Southern California’s eastern desert near San Bernardino or Riverside. Even in the early morning with the sun barely up, the place was hot, dusty, and smelled of agriculture. But it was still a Portuguese town of low, plastered buildings with red tile roofs, stone-paved sidewalks, the sound of the Grey atonally melancholy, and all the rest of the world as remote as the moon. And yet, once again, I was reminded of places I’d grown up, the scent of ocher dust, the color of the light, and the weight of sun like a veil lying on my shoulders and winding up my neck and face, as tangible as a touch. The town rolled along the edge of the road, which wasn’t even a highway anymore, with some of the houses hiding behind stubbled brown humps of land or perching on the ridge in rows like red-crowned birds. The only notable landmarks were the police station at one end of the main street and the soccer field on the other. The road stretched away, east, out of town, into more rolling, sunburned hills dotted with dust-laden trees. It seemed like we’d come to the end of the world and the road was only an illusion that would vanish under our feet and return us endlessly to the same intersection.

I looked at Quinton. “Where to?”

He frowned and pulled a pad of paper from one of his pockets. “East. The directions say it’s a little more than three kilometers—about two miles. Can you walk that far?”

“I don’t walk on my hands.”

He gave me a tired smile and we started on our way.

Usually, I stride along at a good clip and could have completed the trip in less than an hour, but it was warm and I wasn’t at my best. Two hours later we turned onto a dirt road that went up a long rise landmarked by crippled cork oaks. The driveway curved to a rambling white house perched on the height so it looked down into a valley of wheat stubble and olive groves that tumbled to the edge of a small river. The energetic colors around the house were soft, as if they were as worn by time as the rolling hills. The sign at the edge of the road indicated that the house took in guests and I hoped we were in the right place. I could hear kids behind a courtyard wall and the splashing of water. A painted tile sign beside the gate in the wall identified the building with a number and the name A CASA RIBEIRA NO VALE DAS OLIVEIRAS, and a hand-painted addition just below the tiles read TURISMO RURAL.

“The name’s right—if I understood Rafa correctly,” Quinton said, “But the turismo rural is a tourist bureau, which would make this a sort of . . . very nice B and B, for lack of a better term. Most people call them turihabs.”

“Is this bad?” I asked, my voice still no louder than a whisper.

“Not necessarily, but I wasn’t expecting this. It’s not quite a hotel, but it’s not really a private house, either, so, while it’s all right to just walk into the courtyard and see what’s what, we have no guarantee about who else may be here.”

I opened the gate and walked through into a white-walled corridor between the building and the courtyard wall. The ground was covered in slate slabs, and I followed the walkway along the side of the house until the wall turned and I came out into the courtyard itself. The wall ended a few dozen feet ahead, leaving an open, falling-away view of the shallow valley below. A wide blue swimming pool stretched across half of the revealed terrace and a small band of children played in and around it, screeching with delight. Carlos sat in a deck chair at the far end of the terrace from the pool, brooding out into the view. He raised his head and turned toward us as a petite woman stepped out from the house through a door on my left. She was almost a dead ringer for Rafa.

She peered at us with a knowing smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Cousin Carlos told us to expect you in a day or two, but we’re pleased to see you sooner. I’m Nelia. Welcome to A Casa Ribeira.”

Carlos had left his chair and was a few steps away from Nelia. As he closed the distance and stopped beside her, he also reached forward and took my injured hand. For a moment he said nothing, glancing at me, then frowning at Quinton, and then down to my bandaged hand before he looked into my face.

“What have you done to yourself?”