Esperanza (45 page)

She pushed through a pair of double doors and they stepped out into the stunning courtyard and garden around which the inn was built. Tremendous flowers bloomed, colorful faces turned toward the sun and the blue dome of sky. Birds flitted through the branches of the tall trees, vines with leaves the size of house cats twisted around the trunks.

“How long have you lived in Ecuador?” he asked.

“Ten years. I came from Nice when I finished at university, met my husband here and we borrowed to buy the inn.”

“Then you’ve been here long enough to tell me how to get to Esperanza.”

“Esperanza? I’ve never heard of it. But there are so many towns and villages in Ecuador that I could live here for decades more and not know them all.”

The depth of his disappointment probably showed on his face. “Is there anyone in town who might know?”

“Possibly. Ask around in the shops. By the way, I’m Kim Eckert.”

“Ian Ritter.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but he couldn’t read it.

“Ian from the cold country?”

Huh?
“Well, I’m from Minneapolis and it’s plenty cold. But—”

“You are, well, almost famous among some Quechuans.”

“I am?”

“Months ago, the Quechuans alerted everyone in the expatriate community throughout Ecuador about the possible arrival of an Ian Ritter who would be looking for Esperanza. We were asked to put you in touch with a man who lives just outside of Otavalo.”

“So you’ve heard of Esperanza.”

She looked a little guilty. “Sorry, Mr. Ritter. Most people who know about the town are careful about divulging the information.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s considered to be a sacred place to the Quechuans. They don’t want it overrun with tourists, smugglers, and drug dealers.”

“Have you been there?”

“No. And I don’t know how to get there and you won’t find it on maps, either. That will change eventually, but for now, the city remains well hidden.”

She unlocked the door to his room. He eyed the large bed covered in colorful native quilts, the handwoven red and blue throw rug on the tiled floor, the tasteful decorations, the pair of windows, without screens or glass, thrown open to the garden. Off to the right was a bathroom.

“You should be comfortable in here, Mr. Ritter. Let me see if I can get in touch with the Quechuans’ contact person. I’ll need the number in the States and will ring it through.”

“Great.” He scribbled down Luke’s number. “Thank you. Tell me, Mrs. Eckert. Do you get fog here? In Otavalo?”
Should I keep the windows shut?

“Occasionally. It always burns off fast, though.”

As soon as she left, Ian made a beeline for the shower. His clothes were ripe after three days in the back of a wagon, his hair smelled like the inside of a barn, his beard felt gritty with dirt and bits of hay. The water pressure was fantastic, the hot water plentiful. But as the steam rose up around him, it made him uneasy. Too similar to fog. He quickly got out.

The phone rang, he grabbed the receiver. The connection wasn’t the best, but he heard Luke’s string of invectives clearly enough. The call, after all, was four days later than the date they had agreed on. Ian let him rant, then finally said, “Grab a pen. I’ve got a lead.” Ian gave him Kim’s name and the name of the inn.

“Fantastic, Dad. I’ve got a flight to Quito the day after tomorrow.”

“What? When did you decide to come here?”

“I’m done with classes. I feel . . . guilty about what happened. I’d just like us to spend some time together.”

Guilty, about Casey. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about, Luke. Come because you want to. Whatever you do, get out of Quito fast. The political situation is too explosive. Just make arrangements to come straight to Otavalo. If I’m not here, tell Kim Eckert who you are.”

The connection burst with static, the phone died. He would ask Kim to try again later, he thought, and stretched out on the deliciously soft bed. A nap, that was all he needed. But when he woke, it was the next morning. He had slept twelve hours.

He brushed his teeth, dressed, and wended through the exquisite garden to the main building. He worried about Luke coming here, now, when so much was in flux. He didn’t know from one moment to the next where he would end up, what would happen. No guarantees.

He selected a table next to the front window that overlooked the dusty street and the plaza beyond it. A young Indian woman came over with a menu and a pretty smile and he ordered the vegetarian omelet. It arrived with a basket of hot, homemade rolls, coffee, and slices of chilled papaya and mango. His first good meal in days. He forced himself to eat slowly, savoring every bite.

Across the street, kids in uniforms poured from a school bus. Employees unloaded donkey-pulled carts filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, Otavalons were busy in the plaza, setting up the stands for their handicraft market tomorrow, and a black dog loped across the plaza with swift determination. It wasn’t distracted by people, smells, children, not even traffic. It just kept heading toward the ExPat, panting, tail straight up in the air. It vanished behind one of the wooden wagons, reappeared, then he lost sight of it behind the school bus.

Ian dropped a couple of dollars on the table to cover breakfast, pushed back from the table. The bus pulled away from the curb. No sign of the black dog. But a man in jeans and a blue work shirt crossed the street, his
thick, black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He didn’t look like a Quechuan or an Otavalon.

Where’s the dog?
He felt sure it had been Nomad. Impossible. But since the day of his heart attack months ago, his life had become a testament to impossibility.

His gaze swept through the street, across the plaza, pausing at trees, patches of grass, in front of shops, and returned to the man. He glanced at Ian, who looked away, pretending that he was waiting for someone. But as the man walked past him, an overpowering sense of familiarity seized Ian and he turned—only to find the man staring back at him.

Tall, a broad forehead, neatly trimmed beard, tea-colored eyes. Ian nearly said,
Nomad?
But couldn’t bring himself to do so because of what it would imply.
Yeah? And what’s that implication?

A dog that had changed into a man. Shape-shifter. Sure. And it would mean he might still be in the nuthouse.

“Are you Mr. Ritter?” the man asked with barely a trace of an accent.

“Yes.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The man extended his hand. “I’m Wayra. Kim called me. Should we talk inside?”

Wayra? Who had driven Sara Wells to Esperanza two years ago? Maybe he wasn’t nuts. “Before we talk about anything, I’d like to know if you can show me the way to Esperanza.”

“Perhaps.”

“That sounds cagey. It’s either yes or no, Wayra.”

“In the world you’ve stumbled into,
muchacho,
nothing is that black or white. What do you remember about your time there?”

The question both disturbed and intrigued Ian. It suggested that Wayra understood things he had no way of knowing. “I remember a lot, including the
brujos
.”

“Do you remember me?”

“Your name, that’s all.”

“Well, now that you and I have made contact, the
brujos
will be out in full force.” He gestured down the street, where a light fog had begun to form.

Ian thought of what had happened in San Francisco, how quickly that fog had rolled up from the bay, consuming everything, and opened the door. “Will we be safe in here?”

“For a time. It would be foolish for them to upset the delicate balance
they have with the people here. Otavaleños are world travelers, so when
brujos
take them, they do so to learn about the larger world, about the making of leather, their art, their business sense. They don’t wear out the bodies. There’s a kind of strange cooperation. In return, the Otavaleños are often healed of physical ailments and disease. The
brujos
are not entirely evil, Mr. Ritter.”

“I hate to sound selfish, but I’m more concerned about one of them seizing me.”

“They won’t do it here. They risk losing too much. But once we move beyond Otavalo . . .” He shrugged. “Then the rules change.”

Wayra greeted Kim Eckert. While they chatted, Ian ordered two coffees from the young woman who had brought him breakfast and said he and Wayra would be out on the back porch. He rushed back to his room for his pack, then joined Wayra on the porch that faced the beautiful garden. His coffee steamed in the cool air. “Do you know about Tess?” he asked.

“Yes. She survived.”

Ian shut his eyes, stunned that Wayra had said the one thing that mattered.
She survived.
He had a million questions, but didn’t know where to start. Wayra spoke first.

“Look, I know you’ve got a lot of questions. I’ll try to answer them. Let me give you some basics first. Among
brujos
and people associated with them, there’s a kind of information network that extends through time and space. Like most systems, it’s imperfect and, unfortunately for us, they can access it the same way that those on our side can.”

“So they know what we’re doing?”

“They have a general picture, as do we. For instance, I know you were under a great threat in San Francisco, that Dominica seized someone close to Tess, and also seized someone close to you. I know Dominica’s longtime partner, Ben, is dead. Tess killed the body he was using and Ben couldn’t escape before the host body died. Most of what I know, they know. But the specifics escape me. If I try to figure out all of the angles, I get lost. I have to concentrate on the present. And right now, my job is to get you to Esperanza, any way I can.”

This was sounding like an updated version of
Paradise Lost,
just as Sara had remarked. “How could she
kill
Ben? Aren’t the
brujos
already dead?”

“Dead but stuck. My friend Paco used to refer to certain Tibetan doctrines, where it’s believed there are six possible realms into which a soul can
be born—the realms of Hell, Hungry Ghost, Animal, Human, Demi-God, and God. He felt that the souls who become
brujos
are actually born into the Hungry Ghost realm, a place entrenched in greed, where desires can never be satisfied. That pretty much describes the world of
brujos,
from what I know of them.”

“Paco Faraday? I remember him. He stitched me up. And told me people in Esperanza don’t age. I saw the evidence of that in Sara Wells.”

“All very true.”

“So how old are you, Wayra?”

“That discussion is for another time,
muchacho.
The—”

The doors burst open and Kim Eckert ran out, her face bone white. She rattled away in French, Wayra shot to his feet, translating aloud almost as quickly as she spoke. The fog was thickening, rolling up the main road through town, swallowing all in its path. “Get your husband, your employees,” he told her. “Take them to the highest room where there aren’t any windows. A closet, a storage shed. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s high, above the fog. It isn’t after you. Once we’re gone, the fog will leave, too. Where’s the nearest rear exit, Kim?”

She stabbed her hand toward the rear left corner of the property. “That way. Toward Imbabura. Go quickly.” She hugged them both.
“Con Dios.”
She rushed back into the building.

Ian grabbed his pack and raced after Wayra, tearing through the garden toward the rear gate. Already, ribbons of fog swirled under the fence, and when Ian waved his pack back and forth, they broke apart. He and Wayra threw their bodies against the gate simultaneously and it broke open, tearing away screws, hinges, pieces of wood. They fled into the road, but the ubiquitous fog tumbled toward them from every direction, not just ground swirls, but great, thickening clouds. Wayra said, “Forgive me, Ian. There’s no other way.” Then he grabbed Ian’s shoulders.

Agony exploded from the depths of his being and flashed outward to every other part of his anatomy. His bones cracked, his spine snapped inward, his skull hammered.

But suddenly his sense of smell was sharper than it ever had been. The entire genesis and history of a pebble, leaf, bush, lay within its scent, a universe that yielded information. Incredible power filled his legs. He felt that he could run forever. His vision exceeded twenty/twenty. He could see the bump on the back of an ant, the bending of light. Only then did Ian realize
that he was running on four legs, that he was a dog or a wolf or some mix of the two, racing alongside a similar creature that carried his pack between its teeth. Only then was he totally certain that he was still locked up in the Minneapolis Mental Health Clinic, in a straitjacket, in a padded cell.

They plunged into the thick, dark fog. He discovered he could see through it—to the sunlit buildings and cars on the other side—and that he could see the
brujos
traveling within it. They looked like fragmented mosaics, sadly incomplete, as if parts of their souls had been left behind when they died. Most of them were dark, angry colors—bloodred, violent purple, burning orange. The fog remained close to them, but didn’t touch them. Chanting filled his skull, rising and falling, hideous, painful.
Find the body, fuel the body, fill the body, be the body.
But he ran effortlessly. His lungs didn’t strain, his heart didn’t pound. The wind bit into his eyes, but it didn’t burn. In the air, he tasted the
brujo
history and knowledge about them poured into him. Then they were on the other side of the fog, the sun shone, life continued normally.