The Cure (19 page)

I placed a hand on Keene’s arm. “If the Emporium has the scientist, we may all be heading to the same place anyway.”

Keene nodded and moved back to his seat, picking up his discarded plate and tossing me a brownie wrapped in standard airline plastic wrap.

I slumped onto the seat next to Mari. “Thanks.” It was the first food I’d had all day, and it felt comforting to bite into.

The interior of the Pinz was sweltering, and I was glad I’d ditched my extra clothing earlier. The brown tank was perfect, but the loose jeans chafed my waist. I should have worn my favorite jeans instead. For now, I pulled the jeans a bit lower on my hips.

I looked up to see Keene watching me, an unreadable expression in his eyes. He glanced at Benito on the other side of his bench, but the man had propped his feet up on one of our tent bags, his head back and eyes closed, his hands folded over his stomach.

Keene leaned forward, his eyes holding mine. “I’ve missed you.”

“That’s funny. I seem to remember annoying you more than anything.”

“That, too.” His grin sent warmth to my belly.

He didn’t say more, or ask me if I’d missed him. That’s the way Keene was. He didn’t ask for anything, and he didn’t make me feel as if I was losing myself. I leaned forward until our heads were inches apart. “I’m sure we’ll have ample opportunity to annoy each other on this trip, don’t you think?”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Keene laughed, the sound coming a little too loud with my proximity, and I glanced at the front to see if they’d noticed. Ritter’s gaze flicked toward us and back to the window again. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“Holy crap!” Jace slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the supplies. “I don’t like the look of this.”

J
UMPING TO MY FEET
, I peered through the front window. Three huge trees had fallen over the dirt road, one lying on the other two.

“No way we’re getting over that,” Jace said. “And it’d take the rest of the day to get through even with our chainsaw. We’ll have to go around. Hopefully we can find another road. I saw a break in the trees a quarter mile back, I think.”

“Might be a trap.” Ritter looked at me. “Erin, what do you sense?”

I’d been checking as we sped along, but now I climbed outside and did a deeper search. The vegetation framing the road had thickened and I suspected we were close to our original destination of Palenque, which seemed to be a gateway to the Lacandon Jungle, but nothing alerted my senses. There were numerous tiny life forces, but nothing large enough to be human. I was almost sure we were alone, but it was the “almost” that worried me. If Ava were here, she’d be able to tell for certain. Besides, my range didn’t extend that far. What if Emporium agents or some worse danger lurked just beyond the trees?

I didn’t realize how exposed I was until I noticed Ritter and Keene flanking me, both gripping their weapons and scanning the greenery. “There’s no one out there,” I said. “Not close anyway.”

Ritter nodded. “We go back, then.” The tenseness in his voice reminded me that every passing moment meant more space between us and the kidnapped scientist who held Bronson’s possible cure.

Night came early in November, and even earlier in the jungle, but despite the increasing darkness, we found the break in the trees easily, and it turned out to be a rather passable, if narrow, road. Ritter wasn’t happy about the foliage overhead, though, which made it difficult to follow the GPS coordinates on his sat phone. Fortunately, he was also equipped with a compass and there were enough breaks in the foliage to occasionally verify our position with the GPS.

“This might actually get us to Cort and Dimitri faster than that main road,” Ritter called back to us at one point.

I might have been happy at the news, but something was bothering me. I couldn’t put a name to it, but something
felt
wrong. “Stop!” I jumped to my feet and lurched to stand near my brother’s shoulder. “I mean, don’t stop, just slow down.”

“But we’re not going very fast now.” Jace pointed to the speedometer. “Impossible in the darkness with all this brush.”

“Do as she says.” Ritter’s voice was calm but firm. “Now.”

Color leaked from Jace’s face, but he nodded and did as commanded.

“There are people ahead,” I said after a moment of searching. “They’re really close.” Their life forces were clearer with every passing foot. “They’re not together, though. Scattered, unmoving. It’s almost as if—”

“Ambush.” Ritter didn’t sound surprised. “How many?”

“Eight. That I can see.” I hesitated before adding. “But my range isn’t very far. There could be more.”

Ritter’s hand went to his door. “Erin, take over for Jace. Keene and Jace, you’re with me.” He pushed the door open and jumped into the darkness.

That’s right, leave the woman to face an ambush in the dark with only two helpless people for backup.
But I trusted Ritter. Whatever was or was not between us, I knew he’d give his life to protect me.

Awkwardly, I slipped into the driver’s seat as Jace opened the door and dropped from the Pinz. I glanced around, but Keene was already gone. He’d wakened Benito, who now scrambled toward the front.

“Where did they go?”

I explained the situation as clearly as I could. “Just roll up that window over there and lock the door. Then get in the back and cinch up that tarp covering the opening. Tie it down tight and stay still. Don’t try anything. We’re trained for this. We’ll take care of you.” I hoped I was telling the truth.

Blood rushed through my veins in anticipation. I drew my Sig and set it in my lap, needing both hands to keep the Pinz creeping through the rough terrain. I wasn’t going even five miles an hour now. We approached the first hidden assailant, and belatedly I wondered how the men would find them. Worse, what if these were the Emporium agents and they had a sensing Unbounded with them who might be masking the presence of even more people hiding close by?

No.
I pushed this thought aside. The Emporium had an agenda with the lab and the scientists. They wouldn’t waste time creating traps unless they were certain they were being pursued, and Cort hadn’t given us any indication of that. Besides, these life forces were bright, signaling unshielded minds, though I was too far away to decipher their emotions.

I drove slowly onward, passing three more people, once again hidden in the dark brush. When would they act? And where was Ritter? Wait. I could sense someone moving fast through the foliage, toward one of the people I’d passed. It was Jace, still having a problem masking himself. Concentrating harder, I also sensed Ritter and Keene, though the mental light emitting from their minds was considerably dimmer than Jace’s signature, and at this range I couldn’t tell one from the other.

I passed two more hidden watchers and was coming up on the last two when a stack of fallen trees blocked my path, resolving my curiosity about how they planned on stopping the Pinz. These weren’t huge trees like those stretched across the larger road, but big enough that we’d have to get out to move them before continuing on.

I wished one of the others could communicate by sensing so I could tell them, but I’d have to trust that they knew their jobs. If I pushed hard, I could probably send a thought to Jace’s mind—he might be within my range—but I needed to stay sharp and ready to use my ability against our attackers.

Taking my foot from the gas, I let the Pinz lurch to a stop before the log barrier. I left the engine running, hesitating to leave the safety of the cab because the second I did, I’d be a target. I didn’t know if they intended to murder as well as rob us. It might not make a difference in the end. Better to wait.

A swarthy, dark-haired man carrying a huge assault rifle rushed the Pinz from the side, aiming his weapon at my closed window. He was short and wide, with muscles as large as Ritter’s, his face brown and wrinkled by the sun. Definite mortal.

He blurted something in Spanish, and motioned with his gun. “He wants you to get out,” Benito said from the back.

“No, he wants to dance,” I retorted. To the man outside I shook my head.

Grinding out what I assumed were threats and curses, he let fly a few bullets into the air before pointing the gun back at me. Leaving my Sig in my lap, I brought my hands to my face, feigning fear.

He growled and reached for the door.

“Just a little closer,” I murmured. “Benito, lock the door after me. Keep out of sight.” Some distance away, I sensed Jace had reached his target, and I had to assume the others were equally in place. No way I’d let them have all the fun.

Thrusting my weight into the door, I slammed it into the man, feeling a satisfying
clunk!
He staggered backward, bringing up his rifle. Leaping from the cab, I fired as I rolled. One, two, three, bullets from my Sig before he went down.

Another figure emerged partially from the foliage, the bright life force signaling that he wasn’t one of ours. I fired, and he dodged behind a tree. Hard to see what I was shooting at in the dark. Before I could move to find a better shot, bullets sprayed the brush behind me, drawing my attention back to the broad man, who apparently wasn’t out of the game after all. I dodged, tossing one of my knives. He cried out and went still. More bullets, this time from the guy behind the tree. A shot ricocheted off a boulder near me, sending a shard deep into my hand. My gun dropped to the ground. I threw another knife with my left hand, but it slammed uselessly into the tree. My third knife followed.

Crap!
I’d never been very good at throwing knives. I needed my backup .380 Ruger, but it was on my right calf, which made it awkward to grab with my undamaged left hand. More bullets plastered the ground. I scuttled backward, falling to my seat. Crab walking with one hand, past the fallen man toward the pile of logs. Finally, I managed to get out my spare gun. Only six shots. Without coming fully to my feet, I dived behind the logs and began shooting. More shots alerted me that similar battles were taking place out of my sight. I hoped we were winning.

My opponent abruptly ceased firing, though I doubted it was because of anything I’d done. I started to climb to my feet, but the crunch of brush from behind sounded as loud as a shout. I froze and looked around to see a man looming over me, his gun pointed at my face.

Great.

His gaze flicked to the large man sprawled on the other side of the logs and then back to me. His thoughts came to me jumbled and angry, images that spanned our different languages. As his stream of thoughts moved rapidly past me, I realized the fallen man was his brother. I saw flashes of the people they’d killed, women they’d raped, one only a child whom they’d later sold to militants. One thing for certain, he was going to pull the trigger. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt, and it’d stop me from helping Stella.

I lashed out. White fire to his mind. At the same time I lunged toward him, grabbing at the knife on his waist. No, not a knife. Longer and thicker. A machete. I fumbled getting it out. Wasted precious seconds. His mind recovered, and his finger started to press the trigger. I jabbed out with the machete.

Warm blood spurted over my hand as he curled toward me. I pushed him away, pulling the machete from his stomach in case I needed to use it again. The gun in his hand jerked but the shot went wide. Another shot rang out from somewhere behind me. My opponent stiffened, his gun falling to the brush. He breathed in wetly, his eyes wide and staring as he stood there, not understanding yet that he was dead. At last he fell, not gracefully or silently, but like a stiff log thumping onto rocky ground. I stood there for what seemed an eternal moment watching him, feeling the uselessness of a wasted life.

Ritter appeared at my side so silently that I hadn’t heard him approach. “Don’t ever, ever hesitate,” he growled. “You’re lucky he missed, and I didn’t.” He didn’t ask if I was okay, for which I was grateful, but his eyes ran over my body, searching for wounds. He took my injured hand, but already the throbbing had diminished.

“It’ll heal faster with stitches,” Ritter said. “I can do it.”

“Jace?”

“He’s fine. Keene, too. He’s good, even for a mortal.” The grudging admiration in his voice might have had me mocking him in another setting. His eyes fell to the machete, which he took from my hand and cleaned first on a plant and then on the pant leg of the fallen man. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It’s very old.” He untied the leather scabbard from its previous owner and handed it to me. “You earned it.”

I took it numbly and secured it around my waist, the decorative grass strands on the scabbard splaying over my jeans. Maybe I wouldn’t keep the machete, but it felt wrong to leave the weapon behind. I never wanted any man to use it against innocents again.

Jace strode into the clearing. “Any idea who these guys are?”

Time to go back to work. I strode to the big man I’d shot earlier. He was still alive, as I would have explained to his brother, given the chance. Kneeling beside him, I placed my good hand on his temple. Jace knelt beside me.