“Is it time?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m afraid it is.”
He handled it like a champ. When I took over, his mind was quiet. He didn’t protest, didn’t scream. And once again, he didn’t puke, though once again, it was a near thing. When I was well and truly back in control of him, I turned my attention to a dazed and fuming Mendoza.
“You get all that?” I asked him.
“I understood your plan,” he spat. “What I do not understand is why you left my cigarettes back in the bar.”
“I need you sharp,” I told him. “That means your eyesight can’t be compromised by lighter-flicks. That means your nostrils need to pick up more than smoky full-flavored goodness.”
“When this is through,” he told me, “I will kill you for what you’ve done to me and my men.”
“You’re welcome to try,” I told him. “But you’ll have to take a number and get in line.”
We split up then. Each of us with a small camp lantern, doused for now on account of the dangling light bulbs trailing off in all directions, as well as a radio, an automatic rifle (two, in Castillo’s case), and a handgun. Castillo brandished his rifles one in each hand like some kind of gangster as he sauntered out of sight down the eastward spoke. All I could think was if he tried to fire the fucking things holding them like that, he was gonna break his thumbs with the recoil and spray bullets wide to either side. Mendoza, the most senior of the men, walked calmly but with purpose down the western one, battle-weary but determined, and he held his rifle like he meant to use it. Alvarez, clearly frightened, hugged his tight to his body to hide his trembling as he trundled reluctantly into the northeast tunnel. He was also the only one of us to fire up his lantern straight away, despite the burning bulbs. Its aperture was open as far as it would go, letting enough air in the wick glowed pure white, and he held its wire-thin handle with the same white-knuckled hand that clutched his gunstock. I worried his mind would give out long before he reached the other side of the tunnel. I — in the tight, responsive Solares once more — took the northwest tunnel, from which I was told the creature’s collapsed lair once stretched, and through which the slaughtered group had passed on their way to their brief, doomed taste of so-called freedom. I wore my automatic slung across my back, and my handgun at the ready. Seemed to me the quarters were close enough, I was likelier to get off a shot if I had a shorter barrel to bring around, and anyways, when it came to killing this thing, I had less faith in these glorified pea-shooters than I did in my own bare hands. The unlit lantern I affixed by its lanyard to my belt to keep one of the aforementioned bare hands free.
Ten paces down the tunnel, and I could no longer hear my companions. Twenty paces, and I felt alone as I had ever been, my fellow travelers a distant memory. Earth pressed in all around me. Dry dirt like cake crumbles left in an empty pan crunched beneath my feet. My tunnel smelled like a fresh grave. The air was stale and close and hard to breathe. A twinge of claustrophobia I didn’t realize I suffered from until just this moment wound its way up my spine like a millipede with needle-legs. I wondered idly if I could blame Solares for the sensation, some phobias are strong enough for sense-memory to trigger physiological reactions even in the absence of the consciousness that created them. I’ve possessed dead meat-suits that still got woozy at the sight of blood, or skin-crawly at the sight of bugs. But Solares wasn’t dead, and in an experience that proved a first for me I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me for trying to pass the buck at what apparently was my fear and mine alone.
I’ve had meat-suits wail and scream and cry and beg, but he’s the first I’ve ever had one get cheeky.
I pressed onward. The quiet between footfalls was so very, I began to jump at nothing. The subtle shift of my gun strap against my shoulder. The brittle crunch of gravel beneath my feet. The burst of static from the radio as my reluctant scouts checked in — every ten light bulbs, just like we agreed. I made that distance out to be no more than fifty yards, though the twisting of the narrow wood-ribbed tunnels ensured you could never see more than two or three bulbs ahead at a time. They sounded off with just their names, two Alvarezes for every one Mendoza or Castillo. Kid was trying to get through and into open air as fast as he could manage, and I couldn’t blame him. But his fear did more than make him quick. It made him sloppy, inattentive, which is to say I wasn’t terribly surprised when he failed to check in.
At first, I confess, I thought nothing of it. I figured maybe he’d just slowed. But then Castillo checked in twice, and then Mendoza, but still no Alvarez. So I closed my eyes, stretched my consciousness, and felt nothing where he should have been.
So, okay: dead, you’re thinking. And you damn sure aren’t wrong. But that’s only the half of it. I spend most of my time inhabiting the recent dead. Collector juju’s strong enough to restart halted hearts, and to shake the meat of mortis, rigor and livor both. So when I say I reached out and felt nothing, that meant more than Alvarez just being dead.
That means something took him apart so thoroughly, he no longer registered as viable. And that something managed to do so in a span of minutes. Not to mention it was on him quick enough that, jumpy though he was, he never managed to so much as trigger a burst of static from his radio. I hadn’t heard any gunfire, either, but I had no idea if down here the sound would carry.
Two minutes later I got my answer. It sounded like distant fireworks. The grand finale, seemed like, when they launch all the stuff they’ve got left at once. I figured that for Castillo — he of the two autos locked and loaded — a guess that was confirmed when Mendoza took to the radio, calling out to him in rapid-fire Spanish. Solares filled me in on the gist, which I could have guessed — Mendoza was demanding to know Castillo’s position. Mendoza spoke with the breathlessness of a smoker suddenly exerting himself. I knew at once he was headed toward the artery Castillo had chosen as his own, either by backtracking, or through one of the secondary tunnels.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t limited to such earthbound modes of transportation. Not when I had a meat-suit to lock onto, and an approximate location in which to look.
I closed Solares’ eyes and probed the darkness for the spark of life that was Castillo. It took longer than if I’d had a better fix on his location. I hoped it hadn’t taken too. I hurled my consciousness at him with all I had, and when my eyes next opened, they were no longer Solares’s, but Castillo’s.
The sharp reek of kerosene. My lantern, shattered beneath me, glass biting skin. I was on the ground, face pressed to dirt. A hard metal rod beneath my cheek, searing hot. Castillo’s recently fired gun barrel, blistering a brand into his cheek that will last him until his dying day. Which may well be upon him, come to think.
I vomited — possession reflex. Then I rolled over, and blinked against the dark. It was near me. I could hear it breathing, low and wet and oh so patient. But as I cast about in search of my quarry — my prey turned predator — I could not see it. There was a faint glow behind me to the west, toward the bar, toward Mexico. Nothing but pure black headed east.
Something shuffled in the eastern darkness. I patted the ground around me, trying to arm myself. Castillo’s handgun was nowhere to be found, nor was his second rifle. One borrowed shoulder was wet and burning, the corresponding arm cold and numb, my mind dull and slow to focus.
I grabbed the gun beneath me — the one that had seared Castillo’s cheek — and checked it for ammo, or tried. Couldn’t make my numb arm do anything I told it to. Pop the magazine, I said. Work the slide to check the chamber. But it wouldn’t.
Spacey as I was, it took me a sec to realize why.