circle as Amethyst widened the arc of the crystal's motion.
'What…' Donovan clamped his mouth shut as the ashes shimmered, and turned red.
Where the hole had been, a bright, wet circle had formed. It looked as if it was a puddle of fresh blood. Ripples began near the center, spreading outward. Then they cracked and broke like ice on a pond. The ridges and crevasses formed lines and then knit into an ever-sharpening image. Amethyst concentrated. Donovan stepped back for a better view. Before the image was complete, he knew the answer.
'My God,' he said. 'It's Anya Cabrera. She was the sacrifice.'
Amethyst stood quickly. As she drew the crystal away, the bloody image shattered to ash and dust as if had never existed. She dropped the necklace back over heard head and tucked the crystal out of sight.
'What does it mean?' she asked.
Donovan had already turned, and was headed back toward the street at a run.
'If she sacrificed herself, it means they completed the ritual. If that's true, then the Loa are trapped in this dimension in human form. That's what we feared. Now it's worse.'
'Worse?'
'The worst that we feared was that Anya Cabrera would control an army of dark spirits and use them to take over the Barrio. Now those spirits are here, but there is no one to control them. I'm not sure what has happened, but we have to find Anya's followers, and we have to find Los Escorpiones, before it's too late, and not just for the Barrio. If those spirits get loose in the city, we may never track them down.'
'Where are we going?'
'We have to try and find Martinez.' Donovan said. 'And I think we'll have to chance the portals. If whatever he's planning has already begun, they need to know what happened here. If not, it seems likely that Anya's people will act against the Dragons.'
'They'll be slaughtered,' Anya said.
'I don't know about that. Martinez has something up his sleeve. Whatever happens, it isn't going to be good for the Dragons, Los Escorpiones, or The Barrio.'
They entered the alley at a run. Donovan leaped down onto the stone steps. This time, instead of carefully taking steps up and back, his feet moved so quickly it was like a dance. Within moments the portal opened, and they leaped through.
'This way,' he cried.
They turned right and pounded down the corridor. They passed rows of doors to either side so quickly there was no time to take in details. Amethyst glanced over her shoulder several times, but whatever had become of the Loa they'd trapped in the passage earlier, neither they, nor their human hosts were in sight.
Donovan led her up a set of stairs on the left, and moments later they stepped out onto the street. They stood outside an abandoned warehouse. There was nothing to indicate that this set of stairs had been used in the last fifty years. The building was run down with boards covering what remained of the windows. The bricks were painted in bright colors by graffiti artists. There was no one in sight.
'This way,' Donovan said.
He hurried down the street and around a corner. Not too far in the distance, a single home was lit up. It looked as though a party was taking place in the back, but there was no sound.
'That's the Dragons' clubhouse,' Donovan said. 'There are lights; maybe we're not too late.'
They ran the few blocks to the clubhouse, but before they arrived, Donovan's heart sank. There were no bikes out front. The door was closed, and though firelight flickered out in back, no shadows moved in that light, and there were no voices. As they reached the front door, Martinez stepped from the shadows.
'They are gone,' he said. 'They are heading back to Santini Park.'
'We have to get over there,' Donovan said. 'Anya Cabrera completed her ritual, but she sacrificed herself in the process. I don't know what is waiting in that park, or if Anya's spirits will even answer the call with her dead, but if they are there, it's going to be bad. Much worse than last time.'
'I sensed that something had shifted,' Martinez said.
The old man looked exhausted. He seemed thinner, and older. His snow-white hair floated about his face like a gray cloud. His shoulders were stooped.
'I have done what I can,' he said. 'I gave them a chance. Salvatore is with them. He bears their standard into battle. You saw what the dragons he painted on their jackets could do. This one was painted with the Rojo Fuego. The boy is very powerful. He is connected to another place…a place where dragons are more than men. I cannot say that it will be enough, but I can say that I do not think Anya Cabrera's dark spirits will find it an easy battle to win.'
'Can the boy control it?' Amethyst asked.
Martinez shrugged. 'As well as it can be contained, he can. I can't help but think that if Anya gave her life for this battle, there is still something we're missing. I can't believe she would just perish and leave the world to its own devices. Her intention was to rule, not just to destroy.'
'You could be right,' Donovan said. 'In any case, we have to get over there. I don't know what we can do to help, but we have to try.'
'Go then,' Martinez said. 'It isn't far. I'm afraid I'm too old, and too weary, to make a good run of it. You'll have to tell me the story, when it's done.'
'I hope there's someone left to tell it,' Donovan said.
He turned, and ran down the street, his jacket trailing behind him. Amethyst followed. Martinez stood and watched them go until all there was to see was mist and shadow. Then, slowly, he turned back to the clubhouse, opened the door, and stepped inside. The empty street returned to shadows, and to silence.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Santini Park was awash in silent shadows. The Dragons arrived in a slow, winding string of bright headlight beams and rumbling engines. Snake pulled up first, as he had before the previous battle. He let the old bike roll to a stop against the curb, slid the kickstand into place, and sat very still. Salvatore sat behind him, clinging to Snake's jacket with one arm and holding onto the flagpole with the other. His shoulder ached from where the wind had fought to rip his burden from his arms. His eyes watered, and his eyes were wide.
It hadn't been a long ride, but Salvatore was unused to the precise balance and the whipping of the wind against his unprotected face. Snake had ridden without a helmet, his long hair flowing out behind him and tickling Salvatore's face. They had never gotten over twenty miles an hour, but it had reminded Salvatore of that other place, of flying in the grip of the great red dragon. When he closed his eyes, he could see the city below, and the glowing, colored towers.
Now the others pulled in behind them. They peeled off to either side, flowing out and parking like rows of dominoes, each bike tipping onto its kickstand a moment before the next in line. They followed Snake's lead and sat very still. Salvatore scanned the park, but nothing in that darkness moved. He allowed himself to hope, just for a moment, that no one else would come. There was no way to know for certain that Los Escorpiones would meet this challenge, though they certainly must know by now that the Dragons were on the move. Word in the Barrio traveled like smoke, or the wind. Nothing happened that did not eventually make its way to the most distant of ears.
When the last of the Dragons had cut his engine, and they sat in a long, glittering line, the chrome of their engines catching and recasting moonlight, their faces shadowed silhouettes. The night went so deathly silent that Salvatore thought they must all be able to hear the pounding of his heart. It wasn't so much the fear of Los Escorpiones as the fact he could not see them. He could not hear them. He felt them like prickles of ice walking on spider feet over his skin. He sensed them in the hairs at the nape of his neck. He tasted the fear of those surrounding him, and an answering…something…in the darkness.
Snake slid off the bike and stepped onto the sidewalk. He scanned the park slowly, but there was nothing to see. Salvatore climbed carefully off the bike and stood beside Snake. To the right and left, the others followed suit. They lined the sidewalk, and this time there were so many that the entire edge of the park became a wall of Dragons. They didn't speak, and they didn't move. Every man of them waited for a sign from Snake.
In the park, the shadows shifted and slid. Patches of darkness so black they stood out, even against the
