The Silver Scar Read online

  Trinidad stirred against Castile’s knees. No matter what Reine said about “making sure,” the cuts were still bleeding steady. He didn’t know what else they’d done to him, though bruising shadowed his cheeks and arms. Castile bit his lip deep enough it hurt. If they took the time to fight over this, Trinidad could bleed out. Bargaining could cost his life. And the Indigos outnumbered them.

  “Half now,” he said. “Half in a week. If he survives.”

  Reine lifted her chin. “Fair enough for the fun I had.”

  Castile spat at her feet. “If this is your idea of fun, I should just let the crusaders kill you and good riddance.”

  “You should show me respect after what I done for you. But maybe I should I have a little talk of my own with the Christians. Tell ’em where Trinidad really ended up.”

  Castile rose and gathered up Trinidad’s things. “I still have all my old connections, Reine. I can get my hands on enough blast to erase your tribe.”

  Reine took a step forward. “Don’t threaten me without backin that shit up.”

  Castile forced a smile, stretching his lips in a hungry grin. “Tempting.” He thrust Trinidad’s things into one of his soldier’s arms and barked commands to the rest. “Take him. Gently. Sage, signal the dray.”

  A match flared and Sage held it aloft, cupped against the wind. It blew out almost immediately, but their dray had been waiting. It bumped toward them and the driver stopped, the engine running rough and fast. Castile climbed in the tarp-covered back and helped guide his old friend in. He cradled Trinidad’s head in his lap, studying the stark, black cross on his brow in lieu of the damage on his chest. Words wouldn’t come, just pictures to his mind: Trinidad breaking into a rare smile, rough boyhood wrestling, roving through each other’s dreams …

  Magpie climbed in next to them. “It’s not as deep as you think,” she said. “She knew what she was doing. It’ll leave bad scars. But it won’t kill him unless it gets infected.”

  Magpie undid a roll of soft cloth and started binding Trinidad’s wounds. It required Castile’s help to lift him so they could wrap the cloth under his back. Trinidad rolled his head and moaned. Castile bent over him, whispering softly, not really knowing what he was saying. He laid his hand on the archwarden’s cheek, cupped his fingers around his chin. Trinidad quieted as Castile’s callused fingers scraped across his day-old beard.

  The last time he’d seen Trinidad, they weren’t even shaving yet.

  Mismatched lanterns lit with elk grease and tallow candles shed just enough light to keep a body from tripping over the rough path between caverns. The strongest witch among them carried Trinidad’s limp body in his arms. The cold had stemmed the tide of blood somewhat, as well as the makeshift wrapping Magpie had done. Trinidad remained mostly unconscious. Castile urged them along with sharp, low words. There was only one place to take him where the bleeding could be stopped quickly and the infection kept at bay, and he had no idea if he could get Trinidad there in time.

  Castile’s home lay in a quiet offshoot off the main cave. “Gently. But quick, now. Take him to my bed.”

  Magpie had run ahead. She stood next to her brother Hawk, the coven high priest, and Father Troy. Castile hadn’t had the guts to tie the old priest, not one who had prayed to his false god over him in prison. Their high priestess Lady Aspen, heavily pregnant, tended the common fire at their feet. Castile meant to avoid them, but Lord Hawk caught his arm.

  “I have to go,” Castile said. “He’s hurt.”

  “I’ll go,” Magpie said, and jogged off before he could answer.

  “What’s this about, Castile?” Hawk asked. He ran a hand over his white-streaked beard. “Savvying with Indigos? Where’d you get the goods?”

  Castile looked at Father Troy. “Ecoterrs raid for me. I still have connections with the movement. A lot of people owe me favors.”

  Hawk pursed his lips and lowered his voice. “You just pointed the crusade right at us.”

  “The Christians will think Indigos took Trinidad. That’s why I used them to collect him.” Castile knew Hawk couldn’t argue with that logic.

  “Why did you take him at all? He’s not one of us anymore.”

  “Because he’s roving them to the Barren,” Castile said. “I have to find out why. And stop him.”

  A muscle twitched in Hawk’s cheek, but he said nothing.

  Castile wanted to walk on, but Father Troy was watching. Goddess knew, it always had been like Father Troy could see into his soul or something. Back at the prison, that sensation had compelled him to tell the priest all manner of things, of mistreatment and horrible abuse, of the ugliness he lived with every day. If Windigo had known everything Castile told Father Troy, he’d had the old priest murdered.

  “Trinidad killed the Indigos’ Roi d’Esprit. Reine’s father.” Castile focused on the old priest’s beard rather than meet his eyes.

  Troy’s voice was sharp. “Are you certain, Castile?”

  “Yeah.”

  The priest sighed and bowed his head.

  “I’ll fix this, Father. I swear it. I won’t let him die.”

  In his cavern, the witches had laid Trinidad on his bed. Only Magpie was left, standing over Trinidad with her hand on the blade at her hip like she was about to draw and thrust it into his heart.

  “How are you going to go to sleep? Do you need peyote?”

  He’d learned efficient, meditative sleep in prison. Roving had been his only escape. “I can’t do this with you here.”

  “Don’t cut me out, Castile, not now—”

  “Go.” He refused to look at her even as she made a pained noise. She laid her hand on his arm; he pulled away and walked toward the bed.

  As his curtain rustled with her departure, Castile grabbed Trinidad’s sword. The low coals in the hearth flashed red on the silver blade, turning the engraving into a bloody cross. He sank back on the bed, stiff back resistant to stretching out, his fingers finding the grooves Trinidad’s grip had worn into the leather-wrapped hilt. He had to spread his fingers apart to match the archwarden’s hand span. As kids, Castile had been slightly taller, but Trinidad had shot past him in the twelve years since they’d last seen one another.

  He took Trinidad’s limp hand. It felt colder than the sword. Castile closed his eyes, shoved away all thoughts of injury and mislaid plans, willed his nose not to smell the blood, and sank into a trance. He and Trinidad shattered into a million tiny silver pieces.

  EIGHT

  Light behind us, Reine,” Cur said.

  Reine twisted in her seat to look, shoving her locks from her face as the wind blew them back. A single vehicle; motorcycle, most like, with a faint torch. No reason for anybody to ride the county alone at night unless they were following the Indigos home. Their old dray, rigged with armor, crept over the busted road. Motorcycles could move quickly on their solar engines. Whoever it was could catch them easily.

  She sighed. “Stop.”

  Cur obeyed and the engine ground to a halt as the light gained on them. It was a motorcycle. She got out and stood her ground, rifle at the ready—Cur did, too—but they lowered their guns when they saw who it was.

  “What do you want, Hawk?” Reine said.

  Lord Hawk stared hard at the pockmarked rust-bucket dray painted with protective sigils and stacked with their munitions and Trinidad’s bounty. His eyes were close-set in his heavy-cheeked face.

  “A private word,” he said.

  Reine waved Cur back to the dray and walked with Hawk a distance. When they got out of earshot, Hawk turned on her, chipped teeth bared in his chubby face that didn’t match his lean body.

  “Castile is supposed to be back in prison,” he said. “But I find out he visited you and still walks free. We had a deal.”

  “Castile made me a better offer.”

  “What’s the bishop going to say?”

  She shrugged. “My people are hungry and the bishop don’t feed them.”

  Hawk threw up
his hands. “She’ll spare them. Isn’t that enough?”

  Another shrug. Reine thought of her papa’s body on the dirt, waiting for burning, hopefully protecting them as a revered Ancestor rather than rotting in an unmarked grave and seeking the Fury of the Dead. Her lip turned up.

  “You brought Trinidad to him.” Hawk’s whispered vehemence took Reine back to the moment.

  And got Papa revenged, she thought.

  Castile’s offer of food was tough enough to turn down but getting back at Trinidad clinched it. The dead demanded revenge. But Hawk wouldn’t care about all that. She’d heard Wiccans believed their ghosts came back to life in their babies. She dismissed the thought. The only way the dead came back was as ghouls, to finish what their children left undone.

  “Castile took Trinidad to the Barren. They’re there now,” Hawk said.

  “What if he shows Trinidad the way to get there?”

  Hawk said, “Trinidad already knows the way.”

  Huh? Reine thought fast. “Then we need Trinidad dead. What do you think happens when the bishop gets hold of somebody else who can rove, hmm? She doesn’t need us any more, is what. And she starts the crusade, kills us all.”

  Hawk frowned and Reine knew she’d struck deep. “She’s already got people looking for our coven,” he admitted. “She heard about the Wiccan who survived Folsom, what he looks like. The bishop is not stupid. She suspects Castile is the man who attacked her in the Barren. She’s more anxious than ever to capture him, and me too. She gets hold of one of us, this whole thing is done.”

  “Why’d you ever take her there anyway? Been better if you hadn’t.” He hissed, silencing her, but she stepped closer. “No. You dragged me into this fuckin mess and you’re gonna to tell me why it started.”

  He stared a thousand steps past her, quiet long enough she thought she’d have to beat it out of him. “I savvied with Denver. Thought I’d bring the coven inparish, make a better life than living in caves. They wanted us to convert. I told them I couldn’t; I had proof they were wrong.”

  “And you’re surprised now she wants to take it from you?”

  “Bide within the Law you must, in perfect love and perfect trust. Live you must and let to live, fairly take and fairly give. It’s the Rede, and I can’t ignore it. The Barren belongs to all of us. To hold it back is profane, an insult against the Goddess. Not to mention Threefold Bane. We might already be feeling that.” He got in her face. She could smell the sour on his breath. “Castile and Trinidad held back on the Barren and look what happened to them. Trin’s family blown up and him a slave to the Church. Castile seven years gone in Folsom.”

  She didn’t believe in this Wiccan nonsense, that the world got back at you when you didn’t do right. She didn’t believe but an unmistakable chill ran through her nevertheless.

  “You’re right about wiping us off their shoe. Bishop Marius has ten thousand soldiers at Boulder Parish,” Hawk said. “Another thirty thousand at Denver. Can you stand up to that? At least we’re hidden and out of the way. Your freehold, though, is right in their path. Your farmlands must be looking pretty good about now. They’re hungry inparish too.” He laughed, caustic and cutting. “I bet you think Paul will save your fine little ass. No such luck. He might fuck you, and he might even like it, but he’s using you.”

  Reine stared past Hawk at the blades from the old windfarm, pale knives against the dark mountains and black sky. She could ignore the jibe about Paul. They knew where they stood with each other. But forty thousand? She’d known there was a lot of manpower inparish, but an army that size could flick her freehold off its shoulder like a fly.

  “Get Trinidad and Castile out of your cave and I’ll kill them in a day or so,” she said.

  “No. Tonight. Now. I’ll rove you and Paul to the Barren and we finish it. We needed them dead yesterday.”

  NINE

  Trinidad’s chest burned like hot oil seared it. Something heavy lay over the rest of his skin, an apron of iron. He heard a thousand tiny bells ring in his ears. Familiar. Frightening. He thrashed but he found no purchase or light. Hands held him down, but the fingers didn’t dig in like the Indigos’ had.

  Someone said his name. Not angry, not jeering like before. Just, “Trinidad.”

  He’d know the voice anywhere, even deepened by adulthood. But it couldn’t be.

  He opened his mouth to speak and it filled with silken grains. He choked. The hands slipped under his arms and pulled him from the darkness. He sat up, gasping and coughing and spitting sand. Tiny chimes rang as the grains fell away from his body. He caught sight of a veil of brown hair, an elfin chin, sharply defined lips curved into a wry smile.

  “Cas—” He couldn’t get the name out for coughing. When it was over, his raw throat could barely manage a whisper. “You’re dead.”

  “No. I was in prison.” Castile kept hold of his shoulders and ducked close to look into Trinidad’s face, flint-colored eyes intent on his. “Steady. You’ve had a bad day.”

  Castile. The sting of his nearness assaulted Trinidad. He knew the voice, but most of all, he knew the face. Grown now, but Trinidad had memorized every facet of Castile’s fine features when they were still softened by youth, imagined him as an adult a thousand times over. Now scars marred his arms; rough, misshapen knuckles showed his fists had met a face or ten. Bulky, hard muscles slid under his skin. Short, quick movements betrayed a life lived in tight quarters. Like a prison cell.

  Trinidad’s naked sword lay across Castile’s lap, dull against the silver sand.

  Silver. God help me, the Barren …

  Trinidad focused beyond Castile at the sterling world around them. Overhead, the sunless sky died to black, as if the glow shed from the silver sand couldn’t penetrate its depths. As always, reflected light closed around them like a fog, softening edges and blurring his distance vision. The silver glow soothed his eyes, too long strained by the harsh sun of day and pitch of starless nights.

  Tombs and graves stretched to the tarnished horizon in every direction. Nearer, great tombs hewn of silver stone stood in pale relief against the dark sky. Every tomb and marker bore carvings. He knew them without squinting, had explored them all: crosses and suns and moons. Swastikas. Sunwheels and triskeles. Stars, five-points to eight. Pentacles and ankhs. New Orleans Voodoo and Hatian Voudoun and African Hoodoo warding symbols. Words in every language and every alphabet: from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to Old Craft lettering and newer Farsi and still newer Americano next to long forgotten runes.

  And the statues, thousands of memento mori dissolving from stone to ghosts at a distance: angels and dancing children, piping fauns, Herne with a great rack of horns and a fierce visage, cats, horses, sharp rows of soldiers, six-armed women, chubby seated elephants and chubbier men with beatific smiles, draped gods and goddesses on pillars, the enormous lion with the stubbed tail. Stone doves perched on carved tree branches and eagles spread their wings on great engraved altars. A herd of cattle so realistic he used to imagine their lowing; some bedded down on the sand, others appearing to wander but never moving.

  Nearby, a smooth boulder was graven with Herne’s Horns and a triskele, maybe the marker of some Wiccan priest. Silver-veined marble books lay open on the ground, each page as thick as his finger, scattered by whatever gods had made this place. The stone slab of a door made a rough ramp into the doorway of a nearby crypt, still fallen from when Castile and Trinidad had broken into it out of childhood curiosity. Crumpled silver skeletons lay within, undisturbed since. A wall of tarnished bones barricaded a massive tomb marked with angular Greek; in other places knee-high bone hedges surrounded single graves as if protecting the final rest of someone important.

  Everywhere, the silver sand heaped against it all.

  The Wiccan’s voice sounded faint in the enormity. “Still full of tombs and bones. A fuck lot of bones.”

  His eyes flicked down to Trinidad’s chest and his lips parted. He reached out and brushed aside the sheet of s
and glued to his skin.

  Trinidad flinched at the memory of pain as the sand fell away. A winding river of smooth silver filled the gashes made by the Indigo. He touched the ragged lines dug into his skin. The scar flexed under his fingers, warm and silken. A five-point star in a circle that stretched from the top of his chest to below his ribcage. Realization left his heart racing.

  The Indigo had carved a cursed pentacle in his skin.

  I’m just doing the same you did to my papa.

  Reine d’Esprit had not killed him, but perhaps she had done worse by mutilating him, marking him a heretic.

  “Reine d’Esprit.” Castile swallowed. “She tortured you. Do you remember?”

  Trinidad twitched a nod.

  “You were bleeding, in shock. Pulse faint, the works. I got scared. I roved you here and buried you in the sand. I.” He drew a ragged breath. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Trinidad blinked down at the silver glittering bright against his skin and clutched at his training. Roman’s voice cut through his fugue: You’re alive aren’t you? Buck up and do your job.

  But the agony and horror were too recent to ignore. He closed his eyes and felt himself sway as he saw a spray of blood and fragments of skull shattering across the snow in his mind’s eye. Godspeed, Daniel.

  “I know. It hurts. I got my own.” Castile twisted around, tugged his shirt up, and showed his back. A gash of silver crossed his spine from his shoulder to his waist. Trinidad reached out for it but let his hand fall without touching him.

  “I’m sorry,” Castile said. “I’ll make it right, Trin. I swear she’ll pay for what she did, no matter how this whole thing turns out.”

  Archwardens had no business with revenge, but Trinidad couldn’t bring himself to rebuke him. He lifted his head. This whole thing? What whole thing?

  “Her Grace said an angel gave her that scar,” Trinidad said, his voice low and rough. “She said it told her to crusade.”