“You just stay here with Ozzie. There’s a TV upstairs and I’ve got some snack food in the car. If the dog needs to go out, let her out. When she wants in, let her in. There’s some dog food for her. And I can help you find a bowl for that and her water before I go.”
“What if she goes out and she never comes back?” Dolores asked, and I knew from the high, rough voice that we weren’t just talking about the dog anymore.
“She’ll come back. It might take some time, but she will come back,” I said. “And I will too. Your job is to hang out here for the night and be safe. Knowing that you’re okay is what’s going to let me do the things I need to do next, okay? Can you do this for me?”
Dolores hesitated, then nodded. She wasn’t looking at me. I leaned close, kissing the top of her head.
“Thank you,” I said.
Twenty minutes later, the rest of us were piling in the SUV. I had my laptop and the leather backpack I used as a purse. Chogyi Jake had meditated in the master bedroom, focusing his qi and calming his mind. If you had to pick whether Alexander or Ex looked worse, it would have been a hard call. Next door, three snowboards were leaning against the little fence, and four guys about my age were shouting at each other about how to get a grill started. They sounded drunk. I ignored them, climbing up behind the wheel. Chogyi Jake took shotgun, looking back at the lights shining in the condo’s windows as the sun began its winter descent among the high peaks in the west. All around us, the pines had gone from green to black. I started the engine and paused.
From the time I’d arrived at Denver International Airport, just shy of my twenty-third birthday, until Chicago, I’d driven only when I was alone. Aubrey was our default driver before he left, and Ex had taken over in the weeks since. Now I was sitting behind the wheel, and it felt as natural and obvious as something I’d done every day. I had the feeling it meant something. I hoped it was something more than
“Will she be all right by herself?” Chogyi Jake asked.
I followed his gaze. The condo was dark, already in shadow despite the blue still showing in the sky and the glorious gold and pink cloud lace of the coming sunset. It was like a Magritte painting made real. One of the upper windows began to flicker the television’s blue.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably.”
“I can stay,” he said. “Take care of her.”
“For how long?” I asked. “Her home won’t be safe unless we win this. So unless you’re thinking you’d like to flee the country and raise her yourself, you’re better off coming with us and making sure we win. There are kids her age and younger all across the world who are dealing with worse than having a place to themselves for a night.”
“It just feels wrong,” he said.
“Really does,” I agreed, then slid the SUV into drive and headed down from the mountain.
NIGHT FELL as I drove. The twisting little road down from the ski valley was thick with skiers heading down from their day on the slopes. The music on the radio was all “Winter Wonderland” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” every jolly note and unseen smile like a parody meant to make the evening feel more threatening. Once, neaision̵e last cliff on the road, a fallen boulder squatted in the middle of the lane, and I had to swerve around it. The snow and ice made everything slow and dangerous.
In the backseat, Alexander’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. His hand was pressed to the wound in his chest. I shifted the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of Ex. He was brooding at the darkness. He’d tightened his ponytail, until the skin at his temples looked stretched back. It reminded me of war paint and smiley-face stickers on combat helmets. The ritual preparation for violence.
This was everything for Ex. His past with Father Chapin and his failure with Isabel and his redemptive drive to care for me. By slipping into Tomás, the Akaname had managed to threaten all of it at once. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have everything in your life come to a single point like that. An event where it could all be won or all be lost. For a moment, I was in Chicago again, in the basement, driving nails into the coffin while an innocent man screamed inside it. The sick dread and fear flowed into me with the memory, and also Ex’s voice reciting in Latin. Performing the last rites over the man I was killing in part to save the man’s soul, and in part to be there with me during the worst of it. Making sure I didn’t go through it alone.
“It’ll be all right,” I said to myself, and then in an almost perfect imitation of me, my rider took my throat and spoke. No one listening would have noticed the transition.
“One way or another.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but a chill climbed up my spine that didn’t have anything to do with the teeth of winter all around us. I looked back to the road, reached up to shift the mirror away from Ex and closer to where it was supposed to be, and headed for San Esteban for the last time.
Chapter Twenty-two
By the time we got there, the town was a study in black and white. The last traces of sunset faded as I watched, leaving black sky with a billion stars and a sliver of moon haunting the horizon. Snow caught every ray of light from moon or star, glowing blue. The black-barked trees were like cuts in the world with the darkness behind everything showing through. The few bits of light and color—the yellow of a lit window, the single red eye of a truck’s unbroken taillight—only served to make everything else seem bleaker. Ansel Adams meets H. P. Lovecraft.
I parked almost exactly where we’d been the first time. When I killed the engine, the only sounds were the whisper of the breeze blowing snow against the SUV, the ticking of the engine cooling, and the commentary of the crows. I pushed the door open and stepped down into the road. The building looked dead, the blue double doors made darker.
“Okay,” I said. “Alexander? How’re you doing there? You all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. I didn’t know what I’d have done differently if he’d said he wasn’t.
“Ex?”
“Ready,” he said.
I was stalling. An electric knot of anxiety was spinning in my rib cage, and my shoulders and neck felt tight enough to snap. Illed myself to stay calm, but my body wasn’t having any of it. I felt vaguely nauseated and edge- of-my-seat excited and a little hungry. And I needed to pee.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” I asked, and started up the snow-slicked walk before anyone could answer. The three men’s footsteps behind me were reassuring and unsettling at the same time. I had to walk carefully to keep from slipping. When I got to the doors, it felt like I’d come from a long, long way away. Maybe I had. I knocked bare knuckles against the wood three times. It was hardly a breath before the door swung open and light spilled out around us. Father Chapin stood in the doorway. He’d changed into an outfit with the familiar black- and-white clerical collar. His close-cropped hair was combed back. His eyes were merciless as glass.
We stood there for a moment, the priest bathed in light, and me and my cadre on the edge of darkness.
“I am surprised that you’ve come back,” Chapin said.
“Unfinished business,” I said. “You mind if we come in? Little chilly out here.”
He hesitated, then stepped back, letting us pass within.
The others were in the ceremonial room where the exorcisms had taken place. I could almost see myself there in the soiled white shift, covered in sweat and my own vomit. Everyone there had seen me like that, battered, vulnerable, exposed. Everyone except Chogyi Jake, and he was the one I would have minded least if he had. Carsey and Tamblen were sitting at the table where Dolores and her family had met with the priests after the wind demon’s defeat. Miguel and Tomás stood at the double doors that led out to the courtyard, their arms behind them. Everyone was in black tonight. The air itself felt charged, like there had been ceremonies and incantations prepared for us. Probably they had been.
Behind me, Ex, Chogyi Jake, and Alexander stopped. The division was unmistakable, and Chapin had engineered it as cleverly as a stage set. His guys with him, mine with me. Chapin turned, leaning against the table.
“Alexander,” Chapin said. “I’m pleased to see you. We were worried.”
