Lost Ones-Veil 3 (17 page)

“You can drive it, can’t you?” the winter man asked.

The salt wind off of the water scoured him, but he seemed to enjoy it, somehow.

“Yes. How did you know?”

Frost cocked his head, as was his habit. “Perhaps Oliver told me. Or perhaps I assumed it, given your background. Your father’s money provided many luxuries.”

Collette sighed and started up the boat. The engine purred. “Right, then. Cast off.”

Frost went to see to the moorings. Collette looked at the water, wondering what had become of the man who’d been shot and fallen in. His corpse would be floating down there, somewhere.

As the winter man breezed up beside her, she glanced at him.

“You know someone will come after us, right? If not the police, then the military. Or other scumbags like the ones back there on the beach. Even if they don’t catch up, we’ll run out of gas long before we reach the California coast—if I haven’t starved to death by then.”

“We should go,” Frost replied.

Collette stared at him. “You’re making this up as you go, aren’t you?”

The winter man said nothing, just retreated into the cabin to get out of the sunlight.

Collette checked her instruments and pushed up on the throttle, pulling away from the dock. Oliver waited for her an entire world away, and she would do whatever had to be done to get back to him.

Ixchel brought them a hose that must have been used when the horse stalls had to be cleaned out, and Oliver and Julianna transformed an empty stall into a makeshift shower, taking turns cleaning off the grime and stink of the dungeons. Their new friend—whose entire knowledge of the English language was Oliver’s last name—made several trips out into the city for them. He brought back soap, clean clothes, and food.

Oliver didn’t think he had ever been so grateful to anyone.

When Ixchel helped him bind and gag the other stable worker—whom Oliver figured might also be the saddle maker—the man’s face was heavy with regret. Julianna and Oliver tried to use the tone of their voice to thank him, and Ixchel nodded his appreciation, but when the other man regained consciousness and glared at his former friend, there could be no consolation.

Perhaps three hours after they had first been discovered, Ixchel went out again. This time, he did not come back right away. Oliver and Julianna busied themselves feeding the horses, avoiding any conversation about what to do next. Eventually, they could put it off no longer.

“He’s been gone a while,” Julianna said.

She’d tied her hair back with a strip of cloth. The shirt Ixchel had gotten for her was too small and the pants too large, but Oliver thought she looked adorable.

They met in the middle of the stable. The smell of leather and hay filled their nostrils. Oliver took her hand and leaned over to kiss her.

“He’ll be back.”

“How do you know?” Julianna asked, forehead creased with worry. She had not feared many things in her life. It troubled him to see fear in her eyes now.

“Jules, you’ve got to let it go.”

Her gaze hardened and her nostrils flared. “Let what go?”

Oliver took her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. “I’m not leaving you here. If you have to stay, then I stay. We’ll both survive it.”

A sad smile touched her lips and he knew that—though she would always remember the girl she had been—this moment they had built a wall between past and future.

“We start from right now?” she said.

Oliver nodded. “From right now. We get out of here. We go north and hook up with King Hunyadi somehow.”

“I like him.”

“I know you do. If this is our world, now, we’ll live in it together.”

Julianna squeezed his fingers in hers, and Oliver knew that his fiancée wasn’t the only one who had gone through a door that had closed forever behind her. The man he’d been, once upon a time, no longer existed. He would not grieve, though. For better or worse, he’d become who he had always been meant to be. His mother’s son. His father’s son. Himself.

A soft knock came at the stable door. They darted together into the stall they’d used as a shower, even as one of the front doors creaked open. Ixchel entered with another man—a thin, distinguished-looking fellow with silver and black hair. They spoke rapidly and Oliver had the distinct impression the other man was demanding to know why Ixchel had dragged him here.

Ixchel pointed toward their hiding place. “Bascombe,” he said.

Oliver stepped out of the stall, holding Julianna by the hand.

The newcomer stared at them in something like terror, and then his face slowly transformed into a smile.

“You,” the man said, in thickly accented English. “You are really him? You are Oliver Bascombe?”

“I am. And you?”

The man clapped Ixchel on the arm, then rushed forward to shake Oliver’s hand. “I am Lorenzo Baleeiro. Many call me Professor, because I have worked as a scholar and teacher.”

“Professor—” Oliver began.

“Lorenzo, please.”

“All right. Lorenzo,” he agreed, taking the man’s hand before gesturing to his fiancée. “And this is Julianna Whitney. We’re both very grateful to you for coming. I admit, we were a little anxious given how long Ixchel was gone.”

Lorenzo waved this away. “You have nothing to worry about for the moment, my friends. Like many of us, Ixchel believes in the Legend-Born. It is our honor to be able to give you whatever assistance we can provide.”

Oliver glanced at Julianna. She shivered, obviously as unnerved by this statement as he was.

“Look, Professor…Lorenzo,” he said, “I appreciate it. We both do. But I’m no savior, y’know? I’ve been on this side of the Veil for a while now and I know how much stories and legends mean, here. But I’ve also learned that every legend has a core of truth. Monsters and heroes all have their own true nature that sometimes doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the stories people tell about them.”

He ran a hand through his hair, enjoying the sensation of being truly clean for the first time in months, though his mind whirled as he tried to determine their next move.

“Truth is,” Oliver said, reaching out for Julianna’s hand, “we’re just people in trouble.”

Lorenzo smiled warmly. “You may feel ordinary, Señor Bascombe, but trust me, you are not. Unless you are not truly Legend-Born?”

Oliver fought the urge to hide from the truth. Instead, he met the professor’s gaze firmly. “I’m told my mother was a French legend, a Borderkind named Melisande. My sister and I are being hunted for that heritage. I’m not sure if we’re ever going to be able to bring the Lost Ones home the way the prophecy says, but there are some things that Collette and I can do, things we’ve discovered, so we know we’re not as normal as we always thought.”

The professor chuckled contentedly, nodding. “Excellent. We really have been waiting for you for ages. Belief in the Legend-Born is one of the few things that the Lost Ones in Euphrasia and Yucatazca have in common. Which leads me to the obvious question.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

Julianna stepped closer to the professor. “What might that be?”

“Why, what to do now, of course. You didn’t escape from the dungeon just to spend the rest of the war stashed in the hayloft of an old stable, did you?”

A grin split Julianna’s face. “I sure as hell hope not.”

“I thought not.”

Oliver hesitated to discuss their plans with anyone, yet he felt he could trust this man. “We thought we’d wait until nightfall and slip out of the city. I want to travel north and find King Hunyadi. Someone has to tell him that Atlantis is responsible for all this.”

The professor’s eyes went grave. “That has been the rumor. Do you confirm it, now? That Atlanteans are the cause of the war?”

Oliver nodded, and Ixchel started asking questions. Lorenzo quickly translated. As the two men spoke, Julianna moved closer to Oliver.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

Oliver fixed her with a glance. “Something. I’m doing something, Jules. Maybe for the first time in my life. My father—no matter how benevolent his motives—took this from me. And I’m taking it back.”

Julianna reached behind his head, fingers curling in his hair, and kissed him hard. When she broke away, both of them a bit breathless, she wore a small, suggestive grin.

“I guess you are. And y’know what? It’s kinda sexy.”

Oliver shook his head, smiling, and together they turned to face their newfound friends once more. Ixchel and the professor were talking rapidly now, hands gesturing too quickly to follow. They nodded to one another in agreement.

“Lorenzo.”

The professor looked up.

“We don’t want to interrupt, but we need to get out of here,” Julianna said. “And not just out of Palenque, but out of Yucatazca completely. We’d appreciate any help you could provide.”

Lorenzo looked stricken. Ixchel tapped the older man’s arm and asked a question in his native tongue. The professor ignored him, staring at Oliver.

“You cannot simply slip away in the dark, my friend. There is so much good you could do here, not only for Yucatazca, but for yourself. The Atlantean scum who have usurped our throne claim that you murdered King Mahacuhta. They deny the existence of the Legend-Born. They send us to war against Euphrasia. But already many do not believe the edicts that are issued from the palace in the name of Prince Tzajin. If you were to speak to the people—to stand and speak the truth—many in the city would believe you, and others would at least begin to doubt.”

“Wait, what about the prince? If they’re doing all this in his name, where is he?”

“In Atlantis,” Lorenzo replied. “Once, I was his teacher, but Ty’Lis convinced the king that the boy should learn at the feet of the scholars of Atlantis. Now with Mahacuhta dead, we do not even know if Tzajin still lives and, if he does, if he knows of his father’s murder.”

Julianna looked sick. “So this boy who should be king now is basically a prisoner in Atlantis?”

Ixchel watched them all impatiently. Oliver understood how frustrating it was to be surrounded by people speaking another language, but the conversation ran too fast for Lorenzo to translate.

“Yes,” the professor replied. “That is what I believe. I know Tzajin. He was my student. If he were here, this war would not be taking place. The boy would have made certain of the truth before breaking the truce and attacking Euphrasia.”

Oliver took both of Julianna’s hands in his. They shared a long moment of unspoken communication. He knew her determination and her courage, and she knew that his years of bending to his father’s will had made him unable to turn away from a fight that didn’t involve his old man.

Ixchel muttered something to Lorenzo and the professor replied quickly. The stablehand turned to them and spoke as though they could understand him. When he finished, he gave Lorenzo a pleading glance.

“What is he saying?” Julianna asked.

Lorenzo took a breath, defeated. “He says we must help you leave the city. There are still Borderkind here. Ixchel believes there are some from the north, working in secret with people and legends in Palenque. But Palenque is uneasy. As you said, soldiers were in the streets this morning looking for you. Many people shouted at them and even threw things. Several were arrested.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes, studying the man.

The professor surrendered. “As Ixchel says, you must leave. Your safety is in our hands. I believe I know a place—a bar—where many meet who could help us find the Borderkind. It will be up to them to see that you reach the north. Tonight, we will go to this bar. I will take you there myself.”

“Or we could just go right now.”

Julianna stared at him. “Oliver, no.”

“The place is a powder keg,” he said. “If we can set it off before we leave here, all the better. Whatever Collette and I are supposed to do or be, there’s an opportunity here that you and I can’t ignore. We want to help Hunyadi win this war, and make sure Atlantis doesn’t take over the Two Kingdoms. And we can’t do it from the shadows.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Oliver touched her cheek. “I’ve spent too many years in the shadows as it is.”

Julianna hesitated, then looked at Ixchel. “Saddle us some horses.”

Lorenzo translated the request. Ixchel’s eyes lit with excitement and he ran to comply.

“We’re horse thieves, now?” Oliver asked.

“No. Apparently, we’re fucking heroes.”

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” he teased.

But once spoken, the words could not be taken back. Julianna would never see her mother again.

The light went out of her eyes and her smile vanished. Powerless to soothe her, Oliver could only pull her close and hold her tightly. He kissed her temple but did not bother trying to summon any words of comfort. Nothing could be said.

CHAPTER
12

S
everal minutes after he and Julianna had left the stables on horseback—with Lorenzo leading and Ixchel following—Oliver began to wonder what the hell he’d been thinking. Courage and stupidity could often be confused for one another, and he had a feeling perhaps this was one of those times.

The horses’ hooves clip-clopped on the cobblestones of the narrow, curving street, drawing attention as they passed. At first, no one seemed to make any connection between them and the two prisoners who had escaped the palace dungeon, but then they began to earn strange looks. People whispered to one another when they passed. More than one of the murdered king’s subjects darted off into shadows or back the way they’d come, perhaps hurrying to alert the soldiers that the assassins were trotting down the middle of the road.

Julianna shot Oliver a worried glance. He smiled, faking it badly.

“How far, Lorenzo?” he called.

The professor held up a hand. “Not far.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

Their exchange did not go unnoticed. As soon as Oliver spoke in English, other faces appeared. Shutters opened. An old woman came out on her balcony and stared in such horror it seemed as though the devil himself were passing by. But then two other women—younger, if no prettier—stepped from the darkened interior of a house and started to keep pace with them, hurrying as they followed alongside the horses. A man came out the door of a tavern, eyes widening when he saw them, and popped back inside, shouting. Half a dozen others emerged with him and they, too, fell into step behind the horses.

Children laughed and ran ahead. A young girl—a beautiful creature in the prettiest dress—started to knock on doors as she hurried to keep in front of them. As they entered a wider street, people stood up from the patio of a restaurant and stared. On the corner, a man with a guitar stopped singing in the middle of the song.

A man shouted something at him from the restaurant.

“What was that?” Oliver asked.

“He wants to know if you’re the one, the Legend-Born.”

Oliver gripped the horse’s reins and glanced at Julianna. “Tell him I am.”

Lorenzo beamed. He announced it at the top of his voice.

A cascade of reactions swept around them. Some people laughed. An old man began to cry. Others were not quite so pleased.

A beer glass sailed through the air from the patio. Oliver pulled the horse’s reins taut, stopping the animal just in time. The glass shattered on the cobblestones.

“Murderer!” someone shouted in English.

Other voices were raised as well, and now the crowd began to shout at one another. They spoke different languages, but Oliver understood even those whose words were not in English. Some believed he had come to deliver them home at last and others that he was a fraud and an assassin.

“Ride,” Julianna said.

Oliver spurred his horse and they began to canter down the road. Lorenzo shouted at the people as they passed, loudly announcing his identity. He recognized his name in the flow of the foreign tongue, spoken again and again. Oliver Bascombe. Ixchel joined in, shouting at the crowd, but his voice was joyous. He seemed to be exhorting them to action.

They came to a switchback in the road and took it, slowing only as much as was necessary. A huge crowd now followed, filling the street behind them. Lorenzo rode ahead, leading the way into an even wider road where vendors had set up a market. Fresh fruits and vegetables were on display. Shops with open doors sold hand-sewn leather bags and clothing and marionettes and a hundred other things. A girl with a basket of flowers watched them pass.

The word had preceded them into the market square. People spilled into the streets, gathering on either side to watch them pass.

“The bar is just there, across the square,” Lorenzo called back over the ruckus of the crowd. “Those who are whispering rebellion into the ears of the people must be nearby.”

You hope,
Oliver thought. Otherwise, he was about to die.

A group of men and women barred their way. Lorenzo brought his horse to a halt. Oliver’s own mare snorted and reared back before he reined her in. More calls of “Murderer” reached him. Some in the crowd screamed for his blood. He saw the same pretty girl who’d been running ahead of them catch up, her face etched with hatred. She wanted him dead. The idea sickened him.

Oliver sat up straight on his horse and raised both hands to quiet them.

Whether they hailed him or hated him, they complied. Only a low muttering of voices filled the square, now.

“In a few minutes, soldiers are going to try to take us back to the dungeon,” Oliver said, raising his voice so that they could all hear him. Lorenzo translated as he spoke. “I don’t plan to let them do that. The sorcerer, Ty’Lis, has promised to torture and murder the woman I love.”

All eyes shifted to Julianna. She did not shy from them.

“My name is Oliver Bascombe. My father was an ordinary man named Maximilian Bascombe, and my mother was a legend, a Borderkind named Melisande.”

The gasp of the crowd was audible. It had been one thing for them to hope for the truth, but it was another thing entirely for him to confirm it. Catcalls came from the crowd calling him liar and worse. Oliver ignored them.

“If you believe in the Legend-Born or not, that is up to you,” he told them, and Lorenzo continued to repeat his words in the language of Palenque, though many of the people seemed to understand English perfectly well. “I can’t and won’t tell you what to believe, because most of the time, I don’t know myself. So I won’t try to explain what I believe. Instead, I’ll tell you the things I know.

“The High Council of Atlantis wants to seal the Veil forever. On their orders, Ty’Lis sent Myth Hunters out across two worlds to track and murder the Borderkind, and sent the Falconer to murder my sister and me in our home because Atlantis believes that we are Legend-Born, and that we threaten their plans. With help from the Borderkind, we both survived. But the slaughter continued. You see, the High Council had a brilliant plan. If they could kill all of the Borderkind, and us, they could seal the Doors and close off the human world completely.”

He paused, glancing at Julianna again and then surveying the crowd. They were listening. But what could he say? In truth, the king had died by his hand, but it had been the sorcerer’s magic that had led to that tragic moment.

“I carried the Sword of Hunyadi with the blessing of the King of Euphrasia,” Oliver called across the square. “But Hunyadi did not send me here, and I am no assassin. The blood of your king is on Ty’Lis’s hands, not mine. Atlantis has used us all! They want to see the Two Kingdoms torn apart by war so they can come in like vultures and pick at your remains. Now, Ty’Lis has the Sword of Hunyadi hanging on a wall in the palace, and Yucatazcans are killing and dying at the whims of Atlantis!”

Shouts rose. New voices. More people had flooded the square. Something moved on a rooftop and Oliver glanced up to see the strangest creature, a thing that looked as though it were part dog and part monkey, with a grasping claw at the end of its tail. Balconies filled. In the crowd, other legends began to appear—bizarre creatures with the heads of alligators or with mouths where their chests and bellies should be. Snake things slithered over cobblestones. A massive pachyderm stood on two legs at the entrance to a side alley.

“Give us proof!” a voice cried in English.

Before Oliver could say anything, Julianna stood up in her stirrups.

“Proof? What more proof could you want than this?” she demanded, arms thrown wide. Though clean, her hair still looked wild and her exquisite beauty and the edge of her fury made her seem like Eve, freshly evicted from the Garden.

“Oliver could have left Palenque in the middle of the night!” Julianna shouted. “Instead he’s right here, in front of you. Unafraid. Could any of you say you would’ve done the same? Would you have run, or would you have given yourself over to your accusers?”

There’s the lawyer coming out,
Oliver thought. And he realized that he had been doing the same thing.

A scuffle started. A monstrous thing with eyes like a spider’s all over its body tried to reach Oliver. Men and women—Lost Ones—intercepted the creature and drove it back. It began to screech, shouting at him in that foreign tongue.

“The Lost Ones want the Veil destroyed,” Lorenzo said, edging his horse closer to Oliver’s. “But most of the legends do not.”

“Is it true?” a voice cried, cutting through the noise.

Oliver glanced up and saw an aging, bearded man on a corner, keeping out of the hot sun in the shade of a bookshop. His clothes made Oliver think that this man had crossed the Veil himself, not descended from some long-ago ancestor who’d come through, and that he might not have been here many years at all.

“Can you really tear it down?” the man called, desperation in his voice and his eyes.

Quiet fell upon the square. Oliver had felt this scrutiny from juries and from theater audiences many times, but it had never mattered this much. Some of what he’d said thus far had been a performance, even a small deception. But now he could not find it in himself to give them anything but honesty.

“I don’t know,” he said, quietly at first, and then he repeated it louder. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried to touch the Veil. My sister and I…there is magic we inherited from our mother, or from whatever magic brought her and my father together. But whether it works that way, I don’t know. I’ll tell you this much, though. Even if we can bring the Veil down, there’s no way in hell we’re going to do it with this war going on. No way.”

An arrow sang through the air and took Lorenzo in the throat.

Julianna screamed.

The professor brought up a hand, eyes wide with surprise, and touched the feathers on the arrow’s shaft even as blood leaked around it. With agonizing slowness, he tumbled from the saddle and fell to the cobblestones. People backed away and he hit the street with a thump.

Oliver spun in his saddle and saw the soldiers. The King’s Guard had been alerted. To his mind, it was a miracle that he’d had the few minutes he did. Perhaps the size of the crowd had slowed them. Soldiers shouted and shoved people out of their way. No doubt they were telling everyone that he had to be arrested on the orders of the king.

Most of the crowd began to back away. But some pushed forward and attacked the soldiers.

Oliver glanced at Julianna. Her expression was grim. Ixchel still held the reins of his horse and gazed numbly down at the corpse of the professor. Not that they could have ridden away now. There were too many people crowded around, and Oliver counted fifteen or twenty soldiers coming up the street. Half a dozen more appeared from a side alley.

“Shit.”

Julianna shot him a look. “Is that the best you can do?”

“You got anything better?”

“Hell, yeah.” Again she stood in her stirrups. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she screamed at the top of her lungs. For a moment, all of the commotion stopped as everyone turned to look at her. Even the soldiers paused.

Julianna pointed at the larger group of soldiers. “Who gave them their orders, today? They’re going to tell you that the king commands them, but where is the king? Who is your king, now? Is it Ty’Lis? Is an Atlantean the king of Yucatazca, now? Or is it Prince Tzajin? Because if Tzajin’s the king, then where is he? His father is murdered and he doesn’t even show up to bury him? He doesn’t come back to Palenque to see to his people and to be crowned king? Bullshit! Tzajin isn’t here because he’s in Atlantis, and they won’t let him come back! So who are these soldiers taking orders from? Who are you
all
taking orders from now? Atlantis?”

Seconds of silence followed.

Then a massive serpent rose up from the crowd, wrapped around one of the soldiers, and crushed him. Two men fell upon a second and tore off his helmet.

Beneath it were narrow features and greenish-white skin that was almost translucent. The soldier was Atlantean.

A thunderous roar went up from the crowd. Like a wave, they turned on the soldiers. In amongst them, some legends and even some humans fought against the rebellious mob.

“I’m glad I never went up against you in court,” Oliver called to her.

“You should be,” Julianna replied.

Neither of them smiled. Lorenzo had aided them, and now he was dead.

“Ixchel!” Oliver said, yelling to get the man’s attention. “Let’s go!”

He spurred his horse gently, trying to lead the way, to break through the crowd. Getting out of the city remained a priority. He had lit the fuse here in Palenque. The powder keg was exploding, but this wasn’t his battle to fight. It belonged to the subjects of King Mahacuhta. Oliver and Julianna had to get out of Yucatazca and join Hunyadi. More than anything, they had to reconnect with Collette and Frost. Oliver knew his sister would go to Hunyadi as well. If he wanted to see her again, that’s where he would find her. And that’s where the next phase of this war would take place.

As to what that next phase would be—a grim certainty had begun to form in his mind. Oliver Bascombe was no hero, but he had a plan. And for that plan to work, he would need all the help he could get.

The square erupted in chaos. People attacked one another. The soldiers were dragged down. Swords flashed in the sunlight. Oliver closed his eyes against the glare and edged his horse closer to the other side of the square, where the road would eventually lead out of Palenque. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Julianna followed right behind him, and Ixchel behind her.

Then a figure swam up out of the crowd—a creature covered with spider eyes—and grabbed Julianna by the leg. She shouted and kicked out at the monstrosity. Oliver called her name and grabbed the pommel of his saddle, prepared to dismount, knowing only that he had to protect her.

Someone slapped his leg to get his attention.

“That’s enough of that stupidity,” a curt voice said.

Oliver shot a hard look. He blinked in astonishment. For a moment, the face looked unfamiliar, but now he knew it. There were no feathers in that dark hair, but the ragged blue jeans and cowboy boots were still intact.