Blood Lines

SIX

THE inhabitants of Los Lobos didn't see many visitors from los Estados Unidos. U.S. tourists went to the province's capital, More-lia, or to Patzcuaro, near the beautiful lake of the same name. A few made it down to Playa Azul for surfing. But there was little to draw them along the highway that skirted the coast to a tiny fishing village, so the pale-skinned man sitting on the patio in front of the village's only cafe attracted a lot of attention.

He was probably used to that. No one who looked the way he did could have passed through life without drawing many eyes. Especially female eyes.

Pity he was crazy.

His Spanish was very funny, so at first they weren't sure if he meant what he said, but he'd drawn a picture for Jesus Garcia, who owned the cafe. He really was looking for el dragon. But his money spent as well as anyone else's, so they shrugged and indulged him. If it made him happy to hunt for creatures that did not exist, why spoil his pleasure?

At the moment the crazy man was scowling at his map as if he could make the little lines move into patterns more to his liking. He had a cup of coffee near his elbow, and his plate held the remains of his breakfast. He'd eaten four eggs and several tortillas, but he'd ignored the sliced mango.

The two old men at the other front table who'd observed and commented on his breakfast sniggered when the waitress approached the stranger's table. Carmencita put so much sway in her hips it was a wonder she didn't hurt herself. But the man was busy disapproving of his map. He didn't notice.

"Le gustaria mas, senor?"

The tone of voice, more than the words, pulled Cullen's attention away from the topographic map. His smile was an automatic response to that husky purr asking what more he wanted, but it tilted into real appreciation when she removed his plate and wiped the table—a process that seemed to require her to bend over a lot. He looked where she meant him to and admired the view.

"Ah… ahora, no. Pero mas tarde…" He let his expression say what his limited Spanish couldn't. She understood well enough. She gave him back a torrent of words he couldn't untangle, though it seemed to involve setting a firm time. He laughed, told her no comprendo, and eventually she had to settle for the ambiguous later that he'd promised.

Considering how well things weren't going, he might be here a while. No point in being standoffish, was there? Or depriving himself.

Cullen had stopped in Los Lobos for two reasons. The name tickled his fancy, of course. And his curiosity. The village was farther south than he'd thought wolves ranged, even when there had been plenty of his wild cousins in North America. Why name it for animals the natives had never seen?

If he understood the locals right, the place had been named for a pair of peaks, oddly denuded of forest, visible from the village. They, too, were called Los Lobos. From this angle, Cullen supposed they looked a bit like a beast's gaping jaws. That didn't explain why they'd been assigned to a wolf rather than a panther, which this region did have. Maybe the village had been named by the Spanish. Spaniards would have thought of wolves.

The bigger reason he'd stopped here, of course, was that his trail did. Dammit.

A soccer ball bounced into the street, followed by a gaggle of screaming children. Boys, mostly, though one gap-toothed athlete wore braids and a dress. She was the one whose knee connected with the ball, sending it flying straight at him.

He grimaced, stretched up a hand, and punched the ball. It sailed over their heads, hit the cement-block wall of the mercado

across the street, and rebounded into the stomach of the tallest boy, who landed on his butt on the cracked pavement. The underage mob erupted in hoots, jeers, and a few shouted comments aimed at Cullen.

"Little monsters," Cullen muttered. They ought to be in school. Why weren't they in school? It wasn't Christmas yet, was it? He checked in with the moon, knowing it wouldn't be full until the thirty-first.

Barely half-full. Not Christmas yet, then. So why didn't their parents chain them up somewhere?

To his relief, the soccer players chased their ball down the street. He returned his attention to the topographic map in front of him.

Before leaving California, Cullen had spent three days en-spelling his maps: a large one to give him the general direction, with successively smaller maps to pinpoint his target. He was no Finder, but he'd gotten the spell from one, a luscious and annoying Amazon who'd gone with them into hell, where they'd found plenty of demons, as expected. And a war, which they hadn't expected.

Also dragons. Dragons who'd returned with them to Earth to escape the war. Dragons who had, in fact, made their return possible because one of them knew more about magic than any Faerie lord.

And that damned dragon had flown off before Cullen could ask him one single damned question. Flown away and vanished from sight, radar, second sight, and scrying.

And now from his map. Cullen scowled and moved his coffee out of the way.

He hadn't tried to trace the dragons directly. They knew too much about magic—at least the one who called himself Sam did. Sam could block any direct search Cullen might devise. He'd blocked Cynna, and Cynna, however irritating she might be, was a powerful Finder. So Cullen had been tracking where they'd been, not where they were now.

Cullen was very good with fire, and fire elementals exist partly in the present, partly in the past and future, so he'd tied the spell to a small salamander. Dragons being of the present, like men, they shouldn't be able to block the past.

Until five days ago, the spell had worked. The thin gold band on his map, invisible to those who couldn't see magic, flowed along the coast, turned in to the mountains near this little village… and vanished.

Just like those damned dragons.

Since then, he'd been trying to find them by more ordinary means: asking about missing livestock or sightings of strange creatures. As a result, his hosts thought he was insane. Not that he cared, but they told him whatever they thought he wanted to hear, not what they'd actually seen or heard of.

But he was close. He knew it. There was that tickling at his shields last night—which didn't, he admitted, prove anything. But when he'd tramped well up one of the mountain trails yesterday, he'd hit a spot where magic was damped. That proved he was in the right area. Something about dragons smothered or absorbed the magic in their vicinity. Today he would—

The soccer ball came sailing at him again.

"Dammit!" This time he stood and snatched it out of the air. The herd of children swarming toward him stopped. The girl giggled. The tallest boy—the one who'd ended up on his butt earlier— shot a babble of words at him.

It didn't sound like an apology. Or a polite request to have his ball back.

Cullen smiled at him in a way that had been known to make grown men nervous. He passed the ball back and forth between his hands. "¿Este es supelota?"

"Si. ¡Demelo!"

Cullen gave the kid credit for guts. Instead of stepping back, he puffed out his skinny chest and tried to grab the ball—and fell back, nostrils flared, shocked eyes huge in his thin face.

"Brujo," he whispered. Witch.

No, Cullen thought, and neither are you. Though you may not have a clue what you really are. For he had caught the boy's scent, just as the boy had caught his.

To make sure, though, he saw the boy.

Sorcerous vision didn't involve the eyes, or even some arcane third eye that could be opened and closed. Cullen saw magic all the time, but the vividness of ordinary vision obscured it until he paid attention. Some sorcerers had to close their eyes to see magic. For Cullen, it was a matter of changing his focus—something that came easier for him now, after spending three weeks without eyes.

The boy's aura was bright, lively… and shot through with streaks of purple. Oh, yeah. The skinny brat was definitely of the Blood, though not full-blood.

Add that to what Cullen's nose had told him, and the riddle of the village's name was solved. "Boy," he said softly, "we need to talk."

The boy, of course, didn't understand English.

Jesus came waddling out of the cramped interior of the cafe, scolding away in rapid-fire Spanish.

Cullen smiled pleasantly, tossing the ball idly from one hand to another as he listened, catching maybe one word in ten. How should he handle this? The boy hadn't hit puberty yet—both his scent and his aura confirmed that—but it wouldn't be long. He couldn't be left to face his first Change alone. Who should he…

An odd, unpleasant scent made him turn his head.

To his regular senses, it was the barest shimmer in the air fifty feet away, a whiff of a carrion stench. To his other vision, it was a nightmare striding down the street.

It walked upright on two great, clawed feet. The haunches were huge, making the lumpy body look too small. There were no upper limbs. The head—shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a rhinoceros, with the teeth of the former and the hom of the latter—quested forward on about five feet of thick neck and still topped the tin roofs on either side of the road. A naked woman rode on its back, her skin the black-brown of the mask on a Siamese cat.

No, he realized a split second later. The astral form of a woman. The demon was dashtu—physically present but slightly out of phase with this realm. The woman wasn't really here at all.

"Shit. Double shit. I don't guess any of you see that?"

"¿Senor? ¿Qué dijo usted? " The café's owner tapped his arm, jabbering at him. The boy talked right over his elder, glaring at Cullen and gesturing. Three of the kids were sitting in the middle of the road, playing some stupid game with a bit of string. The others shoved each other, chattered, or watched Cullen and the boy.

And the demon was coming, one slow stride at a time. Its head swung from side to side—and zeroed in on Cullen. The eyes glowed red.

So did the woman's eyes. She smiled at him and raised one lazy hand.

Instinctively he reached for the diamond hanging on a chain around his neck. That single, flawless carat, lab-certified, was the reason he was on a cash-only basis these days. Visa still didn't understand why its computers had allowed him to go so far over his limit, and they weren't happy about it.

The stone was only about half-full, since he'd used some of the stored magic in his search. Didn't matter, though, did it? No arcane duels with all those kids in the line of fire. "Shit!" he said again, with feeling. And moved.

Cullen wasn't as strong as some of his kind. He could fight, of course, but he wasn't trained. But he was fast—faster than anyone he knew, except Rule's supernally skilled brother, Benedict. Fast enough that the humans around him would later deny what they'd seen.

So he ran… toward the demon, not away. Running away would draw it after him, right over the underage mob. He didn't know what would happen if a dashtu demon stepped on a kid, but he wasn't minded to experiment.

He'd surprised the demon's rider. The glimpse he caught of her expression as he barreled straight at her and her nightmare pet told him that. Not enough for her to lose focus, though. Her raised hand still directed the magic she'd gathered, an energy loop spinning over her head in slow circles, like a lasso.

Fortunately, her mount had less control. It stopped, jerking its head back, and hesitated briefly before thrusting those toothy jaws at the idiot charging it.

Cullen dodged.

One huge foot lifted as the demon tried stomping on him. He threw himself aside, rolling as he hit the ground, and came up running. No point in hanging around to fight, not when there was a good chance he'd lose.

He made for the church. It was tiny and crumbling, but those consecrated walls should repel the demon. He felt rather than heard the thing's feet thud against the ground behind him. So why he could feel that, when the thing wasn't present enough to be seen or heard? He knew damn little about the dashtu state, but—

Damn! That thing could jump!

Cullen skidded to a halt. The demon had leaped over him, landing less than ten feet away. Its snout darted toward him even as the rider sent the glowing loop she controlled his way.

No time for a spell or to draw down from his diamond. Cullen did the one thing he could without weapons or spells. He flung fire at it.

The creature bellowed as flames crawled up its belly and chest. It tossed its head, staggering back so fast its rider lost control of her lasso. The glowing loop snaked wildly through the air.

Cullen was already running the other way when the loop whizzed over his head. The demon was annoyed, not stopped. Not enough of it was physically present for normal fire to do real damage, and Cullen needed a boost from the diamond to call mage fire.

Probably just as well. Mage fire was the devil to control.

He ducked between two houses, where the demon's bulk wouldn't fit. Unless, that is, it could slip deeper into dashtu so its mass could overlap with—

A glance over his shoulder told him it could.

He popped into a yard overrun with chickens, which squawked and fluttered and generally got in his way. And kept running—into the trees and up a winding mountain path.

An hour later he perched in a gnarly oak tree surrounded by thousands of others. His chest heaved. The muscles in his thighs jumped and twitched, and his shirt was soaked with sweat. The legs of his jeans were wet to the knees.

A butterfly with wings the color of sunrise drifted past like a scrap of tissue paper. Monkeys screeched nearby. He was maybe eight or nine miles from the village and at least a thousand feet higher.

Time was on his side, he told himself. Eventually the woman would have to give up. Legend said that some adepts had been able to sustain an astral body for nearly a full day, but he was damned if he'd credit that bitch with an adept's abilities. Another hour or three, and she'd have to return to her physical body.

He just hoped she took her demon with her when she left.

As the sweat cooled on his body, he shivered, but not really from the chill. Twice he'd thought he'd gotten away; twice the demon and its rider had found him.

How? That was the twenty-thousand-dollar question.

Not psychically. He was sure of that; his shields were locked down tight, and they'd kept out a crazy telepath assisted by an ancient staff. Nor did he think the demon was using scent, not after he'd splashed along that damned creek. Hearing was theoretically possible, he supposed. In his wolf form, he could distinguish between one beating heart and another, but he had to be pretty damned close. He didn't think his heartbeat was giving him away.

That left vision or magic. Maybe the demon was Davy Crockett on steroids and could spot Cullen's traces whether he went down a creek, over boulders, or made like Tarzan through the trees.

Or maybe the demon's rider had some kind of magical fix on him.

Last night something had brushed against his shields. He'd assumed it was Sam. Too bloody sure of himself, he thought now, bitter at finding himself a fool. He should have been warned. Instead he'd been smug, knowing nothing could get through. He…

Cullen blinked. How did he know nothing could get through?

Dumb question. He tested everything. When he'd devised his shields…

The flush of vertigo hit so suddenly he nearly swayed right off his perch. He grabbed the trunk, sweat popping out on his forehead.

When he'd devised his shields. That's what he'd thought just before falling off into… nothing. Because he couldn't remember testing the shields. He couldn't remember coming up with them in the first place.

Them?

Cullen's fingers dug into the bark. He stared out at the jungle, seeing nothing. A beetle as big as his thumb investigated his hand. He ignored it.

He had a shield. One shield, singular, that protected him from any sort of mental attack. And he had no idea where it had come from, or why he kept thinking of shields, plural.

Someone or something had messed with his mind, swallowed part of his memory.

He began tracking his memories, plucking at one, then another, trying to figure out when he'd acquired his shields. When had he first begun relying on them?

It didn't take him long to turn up an answer. That day wasn't one he was likely to forget. He could make a good guess about the culprit, too, though not the motive nor the man's current location. Lucky him, though—he knew someone who could help. Someone with access to all sorts of information.

Gradually, the silence penetrated his concentration. No birds called, no monkeys fussed and chattered. The forest was quiet… and drifting faintly in the air was the stink of rotting flesh.

Son of a bitch! He didn't have time to play hide-and-seek. He needed to be out of this damned jungle and onto a plane.

When the demon's questing snout preceded its ungainly body up the path twenty feet from Cullen's tree, he was standing on the ground at its base. He waited with one hand closed around the little diamond at his throat, the other outstretched.

"All right, sugar," he murmured. "Have it your way. You want to play? I'm ready."