as though it was dragging him down, spreading from him like blood in water.
He thought of Sal, what she could be doing now. Sal had been nice to him. No, not nice. She had been kind to him, and she hadn’t had to be. He’d had a hand in burning the Sacrifice building too, after all. And what about their search for whatever it was out here that could save everything? The search that had led them toward the train, toward the girls. He couldn’t leave it all to Sal. He had to fix things too, not just hide out here in a cave, waiting.
Olivia’s face rose in his mind then, beautiful and dangerous. She could disarm his plan. But wasn’t his plan already disarmed? And what if he was able to disarm her, neutralize her Cardness with his own Cardness? Level the playing field?
The sound of human voices out in the ravine interrupted his thoughts.
He threw on his human form and human clothes and looked out through his cracked glasses.
It was the Laredo Boys, the same ones from before, ragged and tattered, their sunburned white skins painted with those disconcerting black designs. They reminded him of the designs the Picts had painted on themselves before they went to war a thousand years ago. The men had a dangerous coarseness to them, even worse now that he could watch them, their bodies slung with rifles, machetes, axes, clubs. They were far away, but even with his human ears, he could hear words like “metal,” and “trucks,” and “before they do.”
Asa could tell that whatever they were doing, they were up to no good. He started out of the cave after them, then thought better of it. He let his fingers extend into claws, let his back grow arched, let his eyes go daemonic. He tapped his teeth and they went back to the long black needles that they usually were.
If they catch me, he thought, they’re not going home without a nightmare.
Then, moving as silently as the shadow he so closely resembled, Asa slipped out of the cave and followed them.
CHAPTER 17
Zo led everyone through the craggy pass. Olivia followed her, and the rest of them followed Olivia. I drifted along behind my new associates, expecting any and every terrible thing in the desert to throw itself down on us from the cliffs. The others didn’t seem upset in the slightest. If anything, they seemed almost excited, talking about all the things they could use the metal for (a shower system, Susanah suggested, and everyone seemed in agreement). But their hands were never far from their weapons.
“I’m about ready to pay those Laredo Boys back,” said Judith, her big arms taut with muscle as she dragged a makeshift sheet-metal sleigh behind her to carry the haul. “I hope they show up. In fact, I dare them to.”
“They’ve stolen from you before,” I said. “Aren’t you worried they’ll go and attack the train? Burn it to the ground when you’re not there?”
“Unlikely,” said Judith. “When they stole the stuff from Elysium, we’d hidden it in a cave and they just got lucky. As for the camp, Cassandra has a mean illusion set up around it. They couldn’t find the train if they tried. Unless you’re brought to camp, or you’re carrying something that belongs to somebody at the camp, all you see is cliffsides, no matter where you look.”
“Now you see cliffsides, you mean,” said Cassandra with a pout. “After they got through my first set of illusions and stole all our supplies.” She turned to me. “We really are sorry about stealing from Elysium, you know? And when that celebration was planned, we figured no one would notice. If we’d known then what we know now we’d never have tried it, I’m sure.”
“It was a mistake, all right?” Olivia said, from up at the front of the group. “How was I supposed to know that she’d changed the trapdoor spell? It used to just set off an alarm.”
“How did you know about the trapdoor spell in the first place?” I asked.
“You think you were the first brujita she took on as a student?” Olivia said, looking over her shoulder and grinning wryly. A pang of shock and something like jealousy went through me. “We’ll have to talk sometime.”
Yes, I thought, my hand on the penny around my neck. We would have to. I had a lot of questions, and I had a feeling that only Olivia could answer them.