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“We both know that Menefra has plenty of conspirators.

How will I—”

“You will always have me,” he promised, covering his heart with his hand, “to guide you to your rightful place, to keep you safe. Has it not always been so?”

Khara motioned him to lean down so she could kiss his cheek. She undid the simple clasp and handed the leopard skin back to its owner.

“My spirit longs to return home,” he whispered, leaning down until his face was close. “Wait until it is safe. Now go!”

Khara nodded and turned, crisscrossing her way up the steep slope. Nandor would be watching, and she must not disappoint him. The plateau was nearing when she heard a thundering noise that rattled the mountainside, causing her to stumble. Sliding backward on the crumbling shale, she grabbed for a sturdy outcropping of rocks, steadied her nerves, and looked over her shoulder.

He could not have gone far in such a short time, yet Nandor was gone. And something else troubled her. Although she was certain she had just heard thunder, Khara gazed into the cloudless sky, shivering at the unsettled feeling sweeping through her. In that eerie moment of stillness, she heard the faint sounds of pounding hooves and whips snapping. Chariots swarmed into the valley’s narrow opening, churning the earth into a red cloud of fury. In front, hair streaming in the wind, Menefra rode in the gilded procession chariot.

How dare you!
Khara thought, outraged.

Standing at her driver’s side, Menefra held the chariot’s frame with one hand, her free arm wrapped around the soldier’s waist. Her disgraceful exhibition made Khara’s cheeks burn, and her hands clenched into fists at the sight of her father’s prized transport used in this way.

“Faster, faster!” Menefra screamed.

Covering her ears, she raged against her sister.
I pray that the patience of the gods’ wrath will be made up for a thousand times by its cruelty. You will pay for this, Menefra.

But she had given her word. Khara resumed her climb when something dark in front of the riders caught her eye. “It cannot be…” she whispered.

Before she knew it, her feet were flying down the hillside, all promises forgotten. She leapt onto the even ground of the ledge where they had spent the night.
You must survive
resonated in her head, and her steps slowed.

Standing in the middle of the path, Nandor moved his bow into position. “Murderers! Sheep!” he taunted.

Judging the distance, the impossibility of intercepting the troop in time to save his life became clear. Helpless, she could only watch. Nandor took aim and let loose the bowstring; Menefra’s driver fell backward into the dust. Undaunted, she grabbed the reins, wrapping them around her waist. Though the chariots swerved frantically, the young guard’s body was trampled badly and left in the dust. Reducing her speed, Menefra seemed keenly aware that Nandor’s bow had them at a deadly disadvantage. She could easily be next. The chariots fanned out, moving forward cautiously.

Part of Khara wanted her sister, her twin, to die—she who was the other half of her soul. Menefra’s sights fixed on Nandor, and she drew down on him with her bow. Khara sensed a slight correction in her aim. Less than three cubits from where she stood, an arrow thudded against the rock, bounced, and skimmed downwards. Guards yelled, horses reared, and chariots halted as all attention turned on Khara. Nandor dropped his bow. “Run!” he shouted, rushing in her direction.

Her face twisted with hate, Menefra launched another arrow. This one hit closer—only a small distance to the right of Khara’s feet. The guards looked at one other. Confusion kept them from reacting as Menefra placed yet another arrow in the bow. Only Khara could sense the wicked smile that crossed her sister’s face, the words she spoke softly. “I erase you from the Line of Kings.”

Khara stepped forward, throwing her arms wide, and shouted. “I am not afraid!”

Nandor hurled something small and round high into the air which shattered a small distance from where Khara stood.

Menefra screeched, “Kill him!”

Resigned that her sister’s last arrow would not miss and she would soon be dead, a soothing numbness spread through her. Khara watched the guards take aim at Nandor as though she was standing outside her body, as though she were floating away.

She heard a light, musical chiming unlike any sound she had ever heard—the same noise she had earlier thought was thunder, but weaker now. Gradually, the sound gathered strength, deepening until the entire mountainside rumbled again. The earth reached for her. She was being gathered up, taken away from the madness below. Her body and spirit seemed to separate, and then crash back together again. The view below grew fainter, as though a heavy veil had fallen over it. Was she dying, or merely fading away? There was no pain.

Her last vision was of Nandor. A mass of arrows protruding from his chest and arms, he dropped to his knees. Struggling to stay upright, his eyes sought hers. His lips moved, silently saying, “Do not fail me…” He fell face-down into the red dirt, the leopard skin covering him.

“Nandor!” she screamed, her voice echoing peculiarly.

Khara tried running to him but the strange feeling held her firmly. She could no longer feel the ground beneath her. A frightening sensation of being wrenched outside her body came over her again, but this time if felt as though her essence was pulled out and shattered into tiny pieces. She was aware of being carried away amid flashes of colors and unworldly, terrifying sounds.

As suddenly as the chaos began, it was over. Like dust being swept into a corner, she felt her body and spirit gently reunite. When at last she felt brave enough to open her eyes, she was astonished to find herself in one piece. Instinctively, she ran her hands lightly over her body while inspecting her surroundings.

She had expected to find herself in the Hall of Judgment. There she hoped to answer “No,” with honesty, to the forty-two questions that would determine if her heart was righteous. Khara imagined that the hall would be a place of solemn beauty and harbored hope that she might find her father there. But there was no great hall and, for the second time in as many days, deception twisted Khara’s heart.

The desolation of this place could only mean one thing; she had passed into the netherworld of the dreaded Red Land, a wasteland of rocky sand and unspeakable heat. Plants resembling spears or knives jutted from the dry soil. All was still. Her vengeance and rage toward Menefra had revoked her right to eternal life in the paradise of the east; she had been cast out to suffer perpetually in the Underworld.

She saw something shining in the dirt near her feet. It was Nandor’s cuff. Retrieving it, she hugged it to her chest, comforted that some part of him had made the journey with her. She placed it inside the pouch he had given her and hid it inside her dress.

For a long time she wandered, coming at last to a boulder where she rested. Except for a puny, dried-up scorpion near her outstretched foot, nothing moved; even the sun seemed trapped in a web of grey haze. In her worst nightmare, Khara could not have imagined a more inhospitable place. She cried for her father and for Nandor, for herself, and even for Menefra, whose love had somehow been stolen from her. Soon the scorpion abandoned her as footsteps approached.

“
¿
Qué haces aquí??”
A startled expression animated the man’s creased, sunburned face as he stared at her bloody legs, torn dress, and tear-stained face.
“Este no es un lugar seguro,
” he said, shaking his head and offering her a drink from a firm, round vessel.
“Ven conmigo.”

She noticed his odd, colorful clothes—and something else, which frightened her into silence. Khara had never heard his language before, and yet she understood. “What are you doing here? This is not a safe place,” he’d told her. “Come with me.”

In the Underworld, anything is possible. She followed him.

Chapte
r
Four
El Paso, Texas 2010

“Victori
a
, you’d better come out here,” Gracie broadcast over the speakerphone.

“I’m with a client. Be there in a few minutes,” Victoria Barrón replied, disguising her aggravation at being disturbed.

“Now.”

Her receptionist Gracie was not above interrupting a meeting with a client. The coffee pot could be running over, the copier might be jammed or, as happened regularly, her favorite pen was missing. Given her aptitude for drama, these were legitimate emergencies. Still, her voice sounded nervous.

“Mr. Benitez,” Victoria said, “we’re finished for today. The final paperwork should be ready this week. There’s only some waiting ahead of us now.” Grasping the older gentleman’s withered brown hand, she gave it a light squeeze and walked him to the office door.

“Thank god for your help, Señorita Barrón. This citizenship process—it’s so confusing,” he said, running his fingers through sparse but still mostly black hair.

“I could never have done it without you.”

She saw him to the building’s rear exit where they exchanged kisses on the cheek. Now what was Gracie’s crisis?

The main hallway of the Center for Help was lined with four giant cork bulletin boards, two on each side. Their sleek, black, contemporary frames dressed up the otherwise modest office. Hundreds of photos scattered within them told the center’s history. Snapshots of young men and women in new uniforms, smiling gratefully from behind fast food counters; a courtroom full of proud new citizens-to-be taking their naturalization oath. There were even photos of the center from the days when only Victoria could see its potential. There was no particular attention to placement, and they were often moved around, so they seemed to possess a shifting energy of their own. As she made her way down the hall, Victoria was distracted by a snapshot of two young women in caps and gowns, standing in bright sunshine with triumphant smiles, arms around each other. It had been taken on the day of her graduation from law school almost ten years earlier.

“Won’t you even consider the DA’s offer?” her college roommate Beatriz had pleaded with her.

“I can’t.” She remembered Bea’s distressed face as if it were yesterday. “Jeez, Bea, let it go already.”

“It’s a terrific job.”

“I want more.”

“More? Ever wonder why I think you’re nuts?”

Victoria moved past the photo, but not before touching the image of her friend. “Remember what I told you? I still believe it, you know.” She moved on quickly, still talking softly to herself. “When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right ones a fighting chance.”

Gracie was making hurry-up gestures from the end of the hallway as she paced in front of the open door to the reception area. Her usually cheerful face was grim as she pulled Victoria close enough to reach her ear.

“He wants to leave her here!” Gracie whispered. “I already told him we can’t take illegals, but he’s saying that if we don’t, he’s just going to leave her on the street somewhere!”

Nodding and turning to the two people standing just inside the door, Victoria faked a smile, straightened the jacket of her tan suit, and ran her hand over her chestnut hair’s bun.

The man shifted uneasily on his heels, eying the street. She recognized him; cockroaches of his variety were part of the reason her job was so difficult. While her office worked eighty hours a week to get undocumented workers on the right side of the law, he and his band of ruthless smugglers offered them the short, easy way across the border—except that it was never short or easy. On more than one occasion, Victoria had called the police to chase him away. He harassed clients coming in and out of her office, offering a cheaper, faster way to bring remaining family members to the United States.

“You’re not welcome here,” Victoria snapped, noticing his plaid-yoked shirt, snug blue jeans on a lean frame, and roping boots. His face was creased from too much time in the sun—old for a man probably not yet thirty-five.

“There you go again. What did I ever do to you? We’re no so different as you think.” His heavily accented smoker’s voice had an unruffled, sinister tone. “To show there are no bad feelings between us, chiquita, I’ve brought you a present. I found her walking alone in the desert, so I bring her with me. Just to leave her out there…” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “For sure, something bad will happen. Then I ask myself, who can help this stray one?”

Victoria’s attention had been focused on the coyote; now she scrutinized his companion. The poor woman looked dazed and bewildered. She was covered in dirt, but it was a superficial layer. No signs of needle marks or tracks on her arms. Thin, but youthfully so. Athletic. She did not look like a girl who had any business wandering alone in the desert.

“She don’t talk to me—say nothing,” he continued. “I try asking her some questions, but she don’t answer.”

“Where exactly did you find her?” Her words caused him to move backward toward the door, holding up his hands as though he were under arrest.

“You’re lucky I bring her here. Most of—you know what will happen if a coyote finds her. She’ll disappear, or end up in a ditch somewhere—dead.” He stepped away from the girl, slid into one of the blue plastic chairs that lined the room’s perimeter, and patted the chair next to him. More curious than disgusted, Victoria sat down.

He moved in close. “I have to get back. I’m just here making a delivery,” he snickered, glancing at his watch. “Eeh! I’m already late because of her!” He leaned forward, shifting his expression to one of pure menace, his breath redolent of alcohol and cigarettes. “You find out who she knows, where she’s going,” he hissed. “I’ve done my good deed. The sign outside, it says ‘Center for Help,’ no? Help her, let her be deported, I don’t care.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Victoria replied, motioning to Gracie to get the girl out of the reception area. She allowed herself to be led, but hesitated to look his way.

He stood up, removed his hat and smiled gallantly—a peculiar gesture for someone who trafficked in the suffering of others.

The magnetic door separating the reception area from the office clicked closed, leaving Victoria alone with him. She heard Gracie’s voice chattering nervously on the other side. “You don’t know how lucky you are! Those types, they don’t often do anything good. Well, you’re here now. Dios mio, you poor thing!”

Victoria stood, anxious to follow, when the coyote grabbed her wrist.

“Miss, about the girl. Maybe she was kidnapped—”

She shook her wrist violently, and he let go. “Why would you think that?” It dawned on her that he might be looking for a reward for his good deed, and that maybe it wasn’t a good deed at all. “Are you asking me for—”

“Aye, miss! If no one snatched her, maybe she’s a tourist who got lost.”

How infuriating, his weak show of concern. “Now that you’ve dumped her on someone else, you’re worrying about her?”

“She’s no Latina, that’s for sure. She’s no American either.

“I seen them all, even Chinese girls trying to get across the border.”

“I’m sure you have. It is your business, isn’t it?”

“I tell you, that one, she’s special.” He replaced his straw cowboy hat on his head, tugging the brim down low, and stopped just inside the door. “One last thing,” he said, “she’s no so happy with being in the car. Cuidado. Be careful.” He displayed his forearms, which looked like he’d lost a fight with an alley cat; then he was gone.

“Should I?” Gracie’s hand hovered over the phone as Victoria joined them.

“He’s gone.” She closed the door behind her, and took a deep breath. “They won’t find him anyway.”

Gracie slumped into a chair, made the sign of the cross, and snatched a tissue from the black leather holder on the desk’s edge to dab perspiration from her forehead and upper lip. “You don’t pay me enough for this.”

“Are you hurt?” Victoria asked the girl while beginning to give her a good once-over. Her exotic beauty belonged on a runway—high cheekbones, a long neck, and an elegant straight nose. Though her heavy black eyeliner was horribly smeared, no shame could be found in her golden eyes; nothing indicated that the coyote had raped her or mistreated her, as they often did. She was dressed for summer in a white linen sheath and gold leather sandals; her hair, darker than espresso, fell, tangled, to her waist. The fact that she wore no rings or earrings added credibility to the coyote’s statement that she was not Mexican. She had several large scrapes on her legs, probably from her time in the desert.

Gracie sat down next to her on the sofa. “Do you speak English?” Gracie probed gently. “Parlate Italiano?” She went on in several languages, finishing in Russian. “I give up. You’re the language student.”

Victoria tried Hebrew and perceived a flicker of interest. She then switched to Arabic. The girl’s eyes widened slightly.

Gracie’s calm voice inquired, “Shouldn’t we try finding someone who might know more than a few words? Wouldn’t the police know where to find an interpreter?”

“Hold on, I’m not ready to call anyone. Not just yet.”

All the while, Gracie prattled on in her soothing grandmother’s voice. “What should we think about you, eh? Where are you from? Victoria thinks you’re an Arab girl, but dressed like that? No, no. I think maybe somewhere else. For right now, you are una misterio. But you’ve come to the right place. Our Victoria,” she said very slowly, pointing Victoria’s way, “is very good at solving mysteries. The best. Don’t worry, we’ll figure you out.”

The girl’s gaze followed Gracie’s finger to Victoria.

“Think she’s got any ID?” Victoria wondered out loud as she pulled her own license from her wallet and handed it to the girl. “Do you have one?”

She accepted it cautiously, an inquisitive finger tracing the outline of Victoria’s face. Glancing upward, she seemed confused. Her hands trembled slightly as she returned it.

“Gracie, do you see this?”

“Maybe she doesn’t recognize you with your glasses on.”

Gracie grabbed another photo from Victoria’s desk, which showed Victoria and Gracie standing next to a distinguished, goateed older man in a grey silk suit, and handed it to the girl.

“Here, try this one, chiquina.” The girl pointed to the smiling image and moved her eyes to the older woman’s face. “That’s it! Come on now, say something,” Gracie coaxed.

She handed the photo back, her face still expressionless.

“Show her something else,” Victoria suggested. “Something common.”

It was at that moment, when Gracie showed her a green felt-tip pen and then her sunglasses that Victoria’s heart sank. She’d obviously never laid eyes on such things before. The young woman accepted the items with a virginal curiosity. The glasses were clearly her favorite. She held them up to her face, amazement animating her face as she scrutinized the dark lenses.

Gracie’s patience was running out. “So now what?”

“See if she’s hungry.”

Leaving the office, Gracie soon returned with the tin of butter cookies she kept squirreled away in her desk drawer. She held one out to the girl. When she didn’t take it, Gracie waved the cookie in the air. “Cookies. You like them, don’t you? Everyone does. Try one; they’re pretty good. Not as good as mine, but…” Seeing that the girl was unconvinced, she took a bite. Then the girl took one, skimming the rock sugar on top with her tongue, and closing her eyes as she chewed. Gracie quietly asked, “Vicki, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Are you ready to call the police yet?

“Nope.” Victoria fished her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m calling Elias.” She left her office for the parking lot outside the back door, as she did when she needed privacy. She glanced at her watch, hoping she would find Elias at home in the middle of the day, and was rewarded by the cheerfulness in the rich voice that answered.

“Well, there you are!” he greeted her. “Why haven’t we heard from you? Your aunt is at the market.”

“Uncle,” she blurted, “I need your opinion on something.”

“Of course. Is everything all right?”

“Earlier today, someone left a girl here.”

“A girl?”

“Well, not really a girl. She’s maybe twenty or so…”

“What’s so difficult about that?” he asked. “She’s of legal age. Who dropped her off?”

“That’s the strange part. It was a coyote,” Victoria replied, with emphasis on the “yo”—an uncharacteristic slip from her perfected English.

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Something’s not quite right about her. He thought she might be a kidnapping victim.”

Elias groaned.

“Think about it,” she continued. “He could have sold her, locked her in a filthy stash house somewhere, or done any number of awful things to her, but instead he brought her to my center. I think he wanted her to be safe.”

As the words tumbled out, Victoria realized that, like the coyote, she was undeniably drawn to a situation she knew nothing about.

“Have you called the authorities?”

“Here’s my dilemma; missing persons won’t bother to take any time to figure out where she belongs. They’ll hold her as if she’s a criminal until they turn her over to INS.”