Spirits of Ash and Foam (35 page)

In that instant, the entire swarm seemed to hesitate. To pull back and pull off the three children. Then, en masse, it swarmed back out the French doors, leaving its potential victims behind.

'Bastian put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry, but a phantom has no tears. He wanted to speak but felt he hadn't earned the right.

Rain remained frozen in place, breathing hard, spear still poised to strike, just in case the bugs returned. The
zemi
on her left arm continued to glow, continued to swim upstream to heal the tiny punctures and purge the quantity of mosquito saliva under her skin.

Charlie coughed and spit and doubled over, grabbing hold of his shins as he tried to catch his breath.

Miranda cried quietly on the floor—and then began moving in livid spasms, desperately trying to slap away the dead and dying bugs spread over her hair and skin and clothing. She was getting frantic, hyperventilating, and it snapped Rain out of her own paralysis. She crossed to Miranda and knelt to touch her. The snake's glow—invisible to Miranda—struggled uphill to heal her body, but at least it seemed to calm her soul.

“Breathe,” Rain said. “It's over.” And more quietly, “I'm so sorry.”

Miranda stopped struggling; she lay back and took deep breaths punctuated by heaving sobs. She squeezed Rain's hand, then released it, allowing Rain to stumble over to Charlie. He straightened just as she approached—and nearly impaled himself on the spear. Rain kept it aloft, though the muscles in her arm were beginning to burn. With her free hand, she touched his cheek and watched the glow spread to him.

She whispered, “You saved us.”

His head shook minutely back and forth.
It was you,
he wanted to say, but he hadn't quite caught his breath.

Rain grabbed his wrist and dragged him back over to Miranda, who was still lying prone on the floor with only her knees up. They both knelt beside her. Rain glanced at 'Bastian and said, “Keep a lookout.” He forced himself to nod. He still couldn't speak, but, yes, he could keep watch.
It's the least I can do. And the most …

Cautiously, Rain put down the spear, close enough so she could grab it at the first hint of buzzing. Then she firmly grasped Charlie and Miranda's hands in hers. The glow was faint, attenuated, as it attempted to spread across the three friends to heal every infinitesimal injury. Slowly, however, it worked its magicks upon them. With every passing second, they felt a little bit better, a little bit calmer, a little bit more whole. Charlie had only the vaguest of notions what was happening, and Miranda actually attributed her improvement to the power of friendship. (And maybe she wasn't half wrong.) They stayed this way, hand in hand in hand, without speaking. Eventually, Charlie and Rain helped Miranda sit up.

Thunder rumbled. Rain knew what she had to do. Gradually, she disengaged her hands from theirs. Miranda felt the loss like a void in her heart and spirit. Her confidence seemed to drain away. She reached for Rain, but her friend had already taken up the spear again and was rising. Failing to achieve contact with Rain, Miranda found Charlie's free hand instead. The tears came, but she managed to struggle out, “What are you doing?”

“I have to finish this,” Rain said.

'Bastian and Charlie balked simultaneously: “You can't be serious!” and“Are you crazy?!”

“It'll just keep killing unless I use this to stop it.” Thunder rumbled again like another warning. “I need to go now,” Rain said, “before I have both of them to deal with.”

Charlie stood, hauling Miranda to her feet with him. He looked at Rain, staring right into those almond eyes, puffy from the bites around them but still so clear. His own left eyelid was practically swollen shut, and water squeezed out. He wiped it quickly from his face, lest someone take it for a tear. “Okay,” he said. “Let's go.”

“No,” she said. “I'm not putting you through this again.”

He said nothing. He wanted to roll his eyes but figured she wouldn't be able to tell. So he simply maintained eye contact to let her know he was serious.

She tried again. “'Bastian will have my back.”

Charlie said, “No. He can scout ahead—maybe call out a warning—but the one thing he
can't
do is have your back. Anyway, that's my job. Always been my job.”

Sebastian Bohique found himself saying, “He's right.”'Bastian wanted to stop them. To hogtie them if necessary, but he knew he couldn't. And selfishly, if his granddaughter was going, he wanted Charlie there by her side. It was a horrible, crushing realization: He'd rather risk another life than send Rain out there with only himself for protection.

“What … what are you talking about?” Miranda asked in a voice laced with terror. “Who's 'Bastian?” As soon as she said it, she remembered that 'Bastian was the name of Rain's dead grandfather, but that didn't compute, so she said, “You can't go out there!”

Rain put a hand on Miranda's bug-bitten shoulder. It served to heal her a bit and calm her a bit more, but mostly Rain had done it to help Miranda focus. “Listen to me. I want you to go up to your bathroom. Close all the doors and windows. Run a bath so you can get under the water and hide just in case. A hot bath'll probably make you feel better anyway.”

“Rain…”

“I have to. I have to. I have to.” It was a coin flip as to whom she was trying to convince.

The rain was pouring outside in earnest. A building wind splashed the downpour around. The French doors slammed shut, then swung open again. Lightning struck. Rain blinked, and when her eyes opened again, Cash was standing in the open doors. It made her jump, and she nearly threw the spear.

Cash took one look at them and said, “What happened here?” A second later he knew. He said, “You all alive?”

Rain nodded. She said, “Did you see which way the swarm went?”

“Out!” Miranda practically yelled.

Cash said, “Toward the cave. The bat cave … where
it killed me
!” He had already grokked that Rain was planning to pursue the
Hupia,
and though he wasn't quite sure why, he still felt like somehow it was his job to protect her—from herself, if necessary. With that in mind, he stood in the doorway, widened his stance, and crossed his arms defiantly.

Rain turned to Miranda one more time. “Close the doors behind us and go up to your bathroom. It'll be okay.”

Then she strode across the room and walked right through Cash.

“Ah, man!” he said. “I hate when people do that!” Then he jumped aside to avoid Charlie, who, of course, had Rain's back.

'Bastian was next. As he passed, the other ghost said, “Dude, she's your granddaughter! Can't you stop her?”

“No.”

And so the two spirits raced to catch up to the two teens, leaving Miranda quite alone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

THE PAVED ROAD

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

“Rain, wait!” Maybe it was the terror of being left by herself with a vampire swarm on the loose, or maybe it was loyalty to her new friends and fear for their safety, or perhaps a desperate need to cement her place in their world, or an unrelenting desire to learn all the truths still kept from her, or maybe it was all of these impulses, confused and conflicted, roiling through her traumatized mind—but Miranda had chosen
not
to stay behind.

She raced to join Rain and Charlie (and 'Bastian and Cash), stumbling on the paving stones. Rain steadied Miranda with one hand and called out over the rising wind, “You don't have to come with us. You'll be safer inside, believe me.”

The warm, heavy rain pelted Miranda's tired, aching, and already itchy body. She opened her mouth to explain, found she couldn't articulate, well,
anything,
and settled for a helpless shrug.

Rain exhaled loudly—articulating her own confused mix of exasperation and admiration—then nodded and used the bat-spear to wave the whole group forward.

They crossed the grounds behind the Old Manor, heading for the cave. The storm seemed intense enough, but it wasn't close to hurricane strength. Perhaps the kids and ghosts thought—if they thought about it at all—that
Hura-hupia
was still in the process of building to her standard raging fury. In fact, she
wanted
this coming confrontation. She felt good about it. She thought it would end the game. No, this time, the storm wasn't a weapon against Rain—it was a tool to keep the rest of the world out, to prevent anyone from stumbling to the Searcher's aid.

On the dock, Tess Mvua—the lead technician from Vector Control—had to shout over howling winds to Thibideaux and Kwan that they could call it a night. “Mosquitoes won't swarm in this weather. I don't care what species or subspecies.” Together, they retreated into the Sycorax cafeteria to get coffee and wait out the storm, thus completely missing the three teens and two ghosts who passed useless mosquito traps en route to their destination and destiny.

About twenty feet from the mouth of the cave, Cash motioned with his head at Rain and said, “What's with the spear?”

“It's the
zemi
. It's what the Taíno used to destroy Mosquito Boy.”

“No, no, no,” said Cash, stopping. Rain and 'Bastian stopped too, and Charlie and Miranda followed suit.

“What?” Charlie asked. “What did he say?”

Miranda looked around. “What did who say?”

Ignoring Charlie, Rain repeated, “It's the
zemi.
”

Cash shook his head. “It may be ‘a'
zemi
, but it's not ‘the'
zemi.
I found the
zemi
in the cave the night I died. It was a container, like a jar, made from a gourd. It had nine bats carved all around it.”

Rain held out the spear to show him the carved bat-spearhead and the carved bat-flute hanging from it. Cash said, “Yeah, that's what the bats looked like. But my thing was a gourd.”

“What makes you think ‘your thing' was the
zemi
? I mean ‘the'
zemi
.”

“'Cause he was
inside
it!”

“What?”

“Mosquito Boy! The vampire! The
Hupia
! Whatever you want to call him! Look, Callahan sent me to the excavation to look for this jar. He had some Spanish text from 1566, saying ‘they released death from a gourd.' So I dug the damn thing up in the cave, but like an idiot, I opened it, and the swarm flew right out and ate me alive!”

'Bastian asked, “So
that's
how the Taíno stopped the
Hupia
? By sealing him in a jar?”

“Uh-huh.” Cash nodded.

“They must have done it twice,”'Bastian said. “Once after First Chief and First Shaman burned the demon to ash. And then again after the Spanish set him free.”

“Sure, whatever,” Cash said impatiently. “Twice. Three times. Fifty. Who knows how often he's gotten out? I can't be the only dumbass in history.” He turned back to Rain. “But that's the solution, kid. They sealed him in the jar. If you're gonna fight him, you need to go in there and find the jar.
That's
your
zemi
!”

Rain was stunned. Rocked. The soundtrack in her head had gone silent. She had been so sure. The Searcher snake had “spoken,” and she had taken up the bat-spear
zemi
to use against Mosquito Boy, before placing it in the Cache. But if she was wrong, she was leading them all …
Wait! There's no way a gourd jar would fit in that roll-of-quarters slot in the Cache. I'm
not
wrong.
She said, “But when I threatened to throw the spear, he flew away. The whole swarm flew away. He had us. He could have killed us all, but he was afraid of the spear and ran. Flew. You know what I mean.
This is ‘
the'
zemi
!”

Now Cash was stunned.

'Bastian said slowly, “Maybe you need both. It makes sense. If both
zemis
have bats on 'em, maybe they're designed to be used together. Maybe there's a Taíno bat spirit-god that empowers them both.”

Rain nodded, feeling better. “So we use the spear to drive the swarm into the jar.”

Cash said, “And seal him back inside it.”

“And the jar's still in there?”

“Should be. I dropped it when I died.”

Charlie said, “Well?”

Rain said, “There'll be another
zemi
inside the cave. A gourd jar with bats carved on it like the bats on the spear. We need to find it. Then we use the spear to—”

“To drive the swarm back into the jar,” Charlie said. “Yeah, I heard.”

“I heard too,” Miranda said. “But how do you
know
that? Who are you talking to?”

“Explanations'll have to wait. Right now, I just want to finish this. We go in. I'll use the spear to keep the swarm back. You guys find the jar. Then it's all over.” She made it sound so simple, and no one—least of all Rain—actually thought it would be quite that easy. Still, it made them feel better to have a plan.

They proceeded to the cave, three thirteen-year-olds and two insubstantial ghosts, armed with one wooden stick.

CHAPTER FORTY

BLOOD RELATIVE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

'Bastian entered first, followed by Cash. A single ghost light on a metal post, set up that morning by Vector Control, illuminated the surroundings. The two spirits spotted the bugs huddled and buzzing—perhaps even cowering—in the back of the cave. That looked promising, so 'Bastian called out for Rain to enter. She came, spear in hand, and marched straight toward the swarm. Once more, the mosquitoes seemed to merge into the form of a small boy. Now it definitely cowered away from Rain—or at any rate, away from the
zemi
—against the cave wall.