Cold Steel

“Where are we?” I had to pitch my voice to be heard above the rattle and song. “Why are you talking to James Drake?”

“We’re in Sharagua. I’ve been divorced and cast off. And here you are, in the middle of the areito on coronation night. I saw our meeting here in a dream. I’ve made arrangements for us to travel with General Camjiata’s army to Iberia.”

I looked around. The opia had vanished.

Bee grabbed my wrist, yanking as if she meant to rip my arm out of its socket. “Cat! We have to go! A carriage is waiting outside. The tide waits for no man, and not even for me.”

“I’m not going with General Camjiata! Why is he in Sharagua?”

“For the coronation. Anyway, of course he wants me to return with him to Iberia and help him win his war.”

“We can’t trust him!”

“The situation is not as simple as you think it is. Where did you get this?” With her usual disrespect for my belongings, she pulled the basket around and began unlacing it. “These sort of baskets are only ever used by behiques.” She pried open the top of the basket, pulling back her hair with a hand so it didn’t fall in her eyes. “Cat,” she said in an altered tone, “why do you have a skull?”

Blessed Tanit! Hair, skin, the usual appurtenances of flesh and life had vanished to leave a bone-white skull. “It wasn’t a skull before. It was more like the head of the poet Bran Cof, only more commanding and less rude.”

“Look!” Rory pointed to the arch.

A dozen foreigners pushed into view. Falcatas swung from their hips, half concealed in the knee-length folds of their dash jackets. I recognized Captain Tira’s broad shoulders and short black hair instantly, not to mention the way she swept the crowd with a searching gaze.

“Gracious Melqart!” I said to the air. “Where is that cursed opia?”

“Seem a better offer now, don’ it?” he said behind me in a tone I could only describe as gloating.

I spun to face him, clasping the basket shut. “How can I know you’ll keep your word?”

“I give yee me word of honor as a Taino man,” the opia said. “Besides that, which is truly all yee need, I shall help yee get to Europa because I want the cacica’s head to go to Haubey together with a message that he need to come home. So yee see, gal, I’s helping me own self. Yee’s just the messenger I have at hand.”

Such sweet words: help yee get to Europa. But I had to rein in my galloping heart. “I promised Queen Anacaona to take her head to Caonabo.”

“So yee shall. When yee give the head to Haubey, he shall bring it home to Caonabo.”

Blessed Tanit! I shuddered with hope. “What about my cousin? Her blood won’t give her passage into the spirit world. She can only cross through water. Anyway, the creatures of the spirit world hate her and want to kill her.”

“Peradventure them in Europa do, but our ways are different in this part of the world. As for the dreamer, the pools yee waded through shall give her passage. I shall take yee back that same way.”

“Cat, who are you talking to?” demanded Bee.

“Can’t you see him?” Rory asked. “Are you blind, Bee?”

“Not too blind to kick you. Cat, who are you talking to?”

The opia wearing Vai’s face smiled in the smug way Vai had when he knew he was about to be proven right. “Best make up yee mind quick quick, gal. Here they come.”

Captain Tira spotted me across the dancing crowd.

“Very well,” I said. “In exchange for you delivering us safely to Europa, I will deliver the cacica’s head to Haubey with the message that he is free to return from exile.”

The opia replied with an impatient smile so unlike any of Vai’s expressions that I knew I was seeing a glimpse of the man he had once been. Yet he twined his fingers through mine just as Vai had done and drew me back the way we had come.

“Rory, get the chest,” I called over my shoulder. “Bee, are you coming with us, or going with the general? You better come with us. I want you to. Please.”

“Of course I’m coming with you!”

We danced and dodged around revelers oblivious to the chase. They smiled and clapped to include us. As we climbed the narrow path toward the cave, a rifle went off, followed by a rousing cheer from the crowd, who evidently thought it part of the celebration.

We had no sooner ducked into the cave mouth than about twenty Iberians ran up in our wake. The opia vanished in a scatter of sand. I drew my sword.

“Stay back,” I said to the soldiers. “Rory, take off your clothes and give them to Bee. That will surprise them.”

“Blessed Tanit!” cried Bee. “Don’t take off… you’re not really going to…”

She broke off with an audible gasp as Rory stripped. The soldiers halted in confusion.

“You two go on,” I said, keeping my gaze on the soldiers. “Bee, you’ll have to haul the chest when he changes. Stop and wait for me once he’s a cat. Go!”

They went. The soldiers could have rushed us, but the gleam of my sword and Rory’s unexpected disrobing gave them pause.

“I’m reliably informed by the locals that my sword is an object of power known as a cemi, inhabited by the spirit of my mother,” I said in my most amiable tone. “Tara Bell was an officer in the Amazon Corps. Perhaps you knew her or fought beside her.”

Captain Tira pushed through, attended by two men carrying lamps.

“Catherine Bell Barahal, the general wish to speak with yee.”

“Then why has he sent soldiers after me, if it’s to be a friendly chat?”

“I reckon he thought yee might be a bit recalcitrant.” She gestured.

Four of the soldiers broke ranks to approach me.

I thrust at the leftmost, pricking his forearm so he yelped and dropped his rifle. As it clattered down, I pressed in past him to jam the hilt of my sword into the chin of the next man, then swung away before he could counter. The third man clubbed at me with his rifle, but I leaped past him and shoved the fourth man into range of the blow.

The captain shouted a command. Rifles leveled, pointing at me.

“Stand down, gal!” cried Captain Tira.

A gust of wind roared through the cave with a squall of blown sand. The lamps whooshed out. A rifle went off. The sting of its powder lanced up my nostrils. A hand fastened on my shoulder. I twisted away, grabbed the arm, and bit. The man shrieked, reeling away. Men shouted as the lamps crashed to the ground and shattered with a gush of oil that abruptly flamed into bright fire.

The scent of guava flooded the air. A person who looked like me raced past them out the cave mouth. To my left stood a third opia looking just like me. Everyone started shouting at once. In the confusion I dashed for the back of the cave. Another gust of wind doused the burning oil, drenching the cave in darkness. I thudded into a man’s body which I knew instantly as Vai’s.

“Yee brother and cousin is safe. Follow me.”

We splashed through the string of caves up which we had so recently climbed. I stumbled more than once, stubbing my toes on rocks. Blood dribbled down my foot to smear the ground.

When we passed from the mortal world into the spirit world I did not know. But in the dense night of the cave, a big cat’s body nudged up beside me. A long incisor grazed my hip as my hand slipped across his moist nose. He licked me with a raspy tongue. I giggled.

“My feet are coated with slime!” exclaimed Bee in the darkness. “It’s disgusting.”

I laughed.

“Shh!” The opia pulled me close, lips pressed to my ear. “We’s not out of danger.”

Even knowing I was grasping a stranger—a dead man!—I could not stifle the tremor of arousal I felt at the familiar shape I had my arms around, his strong shoulders, his solid chest. He even had the sawdust-and-sweat scent of Vai as well as the mouthwatering fragrance of guava.

“Then it’s best if we hurry,” I whispered, my irritation at my body’s unwanted reaction making my voice a