“Yeah, but—”
“It will return,” he tells me before I can finish. “Trust me. We can try other exercises, but let’s not abandon this one too soon.”
I think of montages in movies where they fast-forward through the hero’s training to the beat of some rocking tune. Why can’t that work in real life?
“Let’s give it another few minutes,” Tío Goyo says, “then we’ll take a break and try something else.”
I nod and close my eyes. His breathing is quiet, but I can easily find it. Ditto his scent. But when I reach for more, I can’t—
A faint movement breaks my concentration. It’s followed by a whooshing sound, and then all sense of him is gone. I open my eyes to find he’s vanished.
Great.
Ampora doesn’t show up until the last bell’s just about to ring. As soon as I spot her, I get up from the picnic table and move to cut her off from the door. She sees me coming and picks up her pace, but I add a little Wildling juice to my step so I still get to the door before she does, blocking her entrance.
She glares at me. “Get out of my way.”
“Soon as you answer my question.”
“I don’t have to answer anything,” she says. “And I sure don’t have to take any of your gangsta crap. So move, or you’ll be sorry.”
I ignore the empty threat. What’s she going to do? Take a swing at me?
“Where’s Marina?” I ask.
“Stay away from me, you freak.”
She starts to walk away, but I grab her arm and I’m not particularly gentle about it. She tries to pull free—good luck with that. When she looks around she realizes that it’s only the two of us out here.
“I asked you a question,” I tell her.
“Yeah, and I could give a flying—”
I pull her in and hoist her up until her face is inches from my own.
“Listen, little girl,” I tell her. “You might think you’re badass, but I could break you in two without even trying. Now. Answer. The. Question.”
I set her back down hard, directly in front of me, keeping a light hold on her shoulders. She shakes her entire body as though trying to rid herself of fleas. Nothing kills the belligerence in this one.
“Why? Or you’re going to go after my family?”
“That’s not the way I roll. I’m not like the little dipshit cartel wannabes you run with.”
“I don’t run with the Kings.”
“Right. You only dress the part.”
“I dress like this so that the jerks in school just leave me the hell alone—not that my fashion choices are any of your business.”
I nod. “You’re right. It’s not my business and I don’t care. Where’s Marina?”
“Let me go.”
“We’ll be doing this all day until you answer my question.”
“I don’t know where she is—okay? She left around four or five in the morning and I haven’t seen her since.”
“She just left.”
Ampora grits her teeth and stares right into my eyes. “So maybe I told her to go when I found out she’s banging you. I don’t want any gang crap around my little sisters, doesn’t matter if your skin is black or brown.”
I let go of her shoulders. “You’ve got your facts wrong. We’re not banging.”
“She said you were.”
“In those words.”
A shrug. “She said you were her boyfriend.”
“So you just kicked her out in the middle of the night.”
“I already told you. I’ve got little sisters—”
“Who don’t deserve an asshole like you for an older sister.”
“Hey, I look out for—”
I grab her arm and she winces. “Marina’s your sister, too, and you put her out into the barrio in the middle of the night. She never made it home. She’s not at school. She’s not answering her phone.”
“Not my problem.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, bitch,” I tell her. “If anything’s happened to her, I’m coming after you. Not your sisters. Not your family. You. And if you think you’re going to breeze your way out of the hurt I’ll put on you, you haven’t begun to understand what you’re dealing with. Doesn’t matter where you go, or who you get to protect you. I’ll find you.”
I let her go and give her a push away.
I’ll give her this. She’s got cojones. Because she comes right back at me.
“Don’t think you can threaten me,” she starts.
“I’m not threatening you,” I tell her. “A threat means it might not happen, but that’s not the deal here. I’m telling you how it will be.”
Then I turn away and head for my bike.
Ten minutes later I’m cruising by Ampora’s house. I make a circuit of the block and this time I pull up at the little park just down the street. There are toddlers in the playground area. Babies in carriages. Mothers and grandmothers and aunts sitting on the benches or standing around in small groups, watching over them.
I ignore the suspicious looks they give me and put the Harley on its stand. Then I walk into the park and start casting for scent.
Marina likes it here. This is where she was meeting up with Ampora after I dropped her off last night. I doubt she’d have stayed here very long after Ampora kicked her out, but I’m willing to bet that she at least passed through on her way to wherever she went. Bottom line, it’s as good a place to start as any.
It’s been hours, with who knows how many people walking through, but I’ve always felt connected to Marina. I could single out her scent in the middle of a crowded beach a week after she’s been there, no problem. Today’s no different. I pick up her scent right away and it leads me straight to the swing set. At first I don’t notice either the broken swing or the way the ladies are shooing their charges away from me. I’m just focused on what my nose can tell me.
Marina was here recently, and more than once. Ditto Ampora. There’s a mess of other smells. Kids, grown-ups—all the people you’d expect in a place like this. But then I catch a scent that stops me cold.
Cousins.
Lots of them, and none that are familiar. I see dog tracks in the sand. Scuff marks that look like a fight.
And then I realize that I’m totally freaking out the women in the park. They’re gathering up their kids and bunching up on the other side of the teeter-totter. As I look up, one of them’s taking out her phone. I figure she’s planning to call either the cops or the Kings. Neither’s a good option.
I put up my hands in the universal sign language that says I’m not going to hurt anybody.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I say. “I’m just looking for a friend. I think she’s in trouble and I want to help her.” I describe Marina and add, “Have any of you seen her?”
Nobody responds for a long moment, but at least the woman with the phone hasn’t punched in a number yet.
“How do we know you’re not the trouble?” a grandmother in her black shawl finally asks.
She looks to be a thousand years old, her brown skin a road map of a lifetime of experience. Her eyes are so dark they seem to swallow light.
“I guess you don’t,” I tell her. “I don’t know how to prove I’m on the level.”
The women exchange looks, then turn to the old woman who first spoke to me. She studies me for a long moment.
“I think I know you,” she finally says. “The young man with the large motorcycle. You are the companion of the boy who drove the bandas away from our park, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. His name is Josh and he’s my brother.”
Her eyebrows go up.
“My spiritual brother.”
That makes her smile.
“Can I ask ...” I say. “Are you also from the Halcón Pueblo?”
A few of the women make the sign of the cross, but the grandmother’s smile gets bigger. The humour reaches all the way up into her eyes.
“Do I look so much like an
old man?” she asks.
“No, ma’am. You surely don’t.”
“What do you know of los tíos?” she asks.
“Not a hell—I mean, heck of a lot. I don’t even know where their pueblo is.”
“I’ve been told,” she says, “that the Halcón Pueblo is not a place, but a state of being, much like your relationship with Josh. The old hawk uncles are spiritual brothers—to each other and to their namesakes. But what that means exactly is unclear to me as well.” She turns to the other women. “Can anyone help this polite young man?”
“The person you described,” one of the younger women says to me, “sounds like Ampora Lopez.”
“Close. It’s her sister Marina I’m looking for.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore.”
“I know that. But she was staying at her father’s house last night and left in the early morning, when it was still dark. Do any of you live close to the park? Maybe you were up and saw something? Or heard something?”
Another of the women gives a slow nod. “My husband, Ricky, said he was woken up early this morning by the sound of dogs fighting. By the time he looked out to see what was going on, it was already over. But he did say he saw a man carrying the body of a dog.”
I get a sinking feeling. I know there were dog-shaped cousins here.
“Are you sure it was a dog?” I ask.
Because in the dark, a sea otter could easily be mistaken for one.
She shrugs. “That’s what Ricky said.”
“Did he know the man?”
She shakes her head. “It was still dark and they left too quickly for him to see much.” She pauses, then adds, “When we arrived this morning there was that.”
She points to a broken swing that I barely registered earlier. I see now that it was pulled from the bar at the top of the swings. One of the support chains was ripped from the seat and lies a few yards away from the broken swing seat.
When I walk over to the chain I smell Marina’s scent all over it. There’s blood on one end, and a small pool of congealed blood in the sand.
Crap.
I didn’t want to think it, but it can’t be avoided now. Last night some pack of dog cousins came at Marina while she was here. Alone. Because her bitchy sister tossed her out on her ass.
I’m going to kill Ampora.
But first I have to find Marina.
I feel like breaking something, but I manage to school my face so that nothing shows.
“Thanks,” I tell the women. “You’ve been a big help. I’m just going to look around a little more, then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Take your time,” the grandmother says. “If not for you and your friend, we would have had to find another park for the children to keep them away from the bandas.”
“It was our pleasure,” I tell her, even though it was Josh who did all the heavy lifting.
I leave them and walk around the park some more, sifting through the scents. The story becomes pretty clear. Marina was by the swing set. The dogs came at her from all sides. What I can’t figure out is where they all went. The scents all lead into the park. Most of them don’t lead out—including Marina’s.
That confuses me until I realize it’s because they didn’t go out. They went sideways. Into the otherworld.
To follow them I’m going to need help.
I go back to my bike. Before I can start it up, I see the old grandmother coming across the park to have a last word with me. I don’t have time for this, but my own grandma raised me to be polite to her generation. So I wait for her beside the Harley. She takes her sweet time, but I don’t let my impatience show. When she gets close enough she lays her hand on my arm.
“The girl you’re looking for,” she says. “Marina. Is she like you?”
I shake my head. “She’s not in any gang.”
The old lady frowns. “I don’t take you for a fool. You could at least do the courtesy of treating me the same. I may not be a brujá, but even a curandera can see the animal spirit living under your skin.”
I know that brujás are witches, but I’ve no idea what a curandera is. I know she’s not a cousin because I’m not getting a Wildling ping from her. But I don’t like that she can just spend a few minutes in my company and know that I’m one.
“And that would make you—what?” I ask.
“A healer,” she says. “A medicine woman.”
“Okay.”
“So your friend—Marina?” she asks.
“Yeah, we’re both Wildlings—but you can’t spread that around. Seriously.”
She gives me a withering as if look that would do my grandma proud and changes the subject. “You were asking about los tíos,” she says, “and I thought I should warn you about them.”
My eyebrows go up.
“Please remember that this is only based on hearsay,” she goes on. “But you are a young animal spirit and will be unaware of the stories that are told about them. You know they fight an ongoing war with evil spirits?”
I nod. “Along with some really big and bad thing that’s at the center of the world or something.”
Which is why they want Josh on their side, but I don’t add that.
She nods. “They welcome allies—especially animal people— but they are more concerned with winning their battles than keeping their allies alive. Be careful in your dealings with them.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, “but I don’t need the warning. I don’t trust anybody.”
She pats my arm. “How sad for you,” she says.
Then she leaves me beside my bike and returns to where the other women are standing.
I don’t waste time wondering why she’s sorry for me. Instead, I start the Harley. I need to find Cory or Auntie Min to help me get to the otherworld. I’d prefer Cory, but he can be hard to track down. I know where Auntie Min should be, so I head for the underpass where she has her camp.
I get maybe a block from the park when I feel the first ping. I start looking around, but it takes a few more pings for me to spot them: a handful of rangy barrio dogs the colour of dirty sand, tracking my progress by running full tilt through the dirt yards on either side of the street. At least that’s what they’d look like to someone who doesn’t have Wildling radar in his head.
I make a few turns just to be sure they’re really on my ass, then I pull over to the side of the street.
I take out my phone and punch in J-Dog’s number.
He answers on the first ring. “Yo, little bro. Where you at?”
“You in the mood to shoot something?” I ask.
“Always. Is this a me thing or a you thing?”
He means, does it involve the gang, or Wildlings.
“Bit of both,” I tell him. “I’ve got a pack of dogs on my ass and I thought I’d lead them back to the junkyard behind my crib. I think they’ve got a connection to the guy who killed Lenny.”
J-Dog was seriously pissed off when he found out that Josh had killed Vincenzo. He’d wanted that pleasure.
“Oh yeah?” he says. “Then they’ve got to die a little slow.”
“One of them needs to not die at all.”
“You telling me my business?” he says.
“I need to be able to question one of them.”
“Well,” he drawls. “Maybe we can make that happen.”
“Come on, Tío Goyo,” I say into the thin air.
There’s no response. I’m all alone here, wherever here is. Except then I hear the sound of voices. I stand up and turn to see a couple of figures approaching from under the big fir trees.
Obviously Tío Goyo didn’t want to be seen by them, which is why he did the quick fade. But what about me? Am I supposed to hide, too?
Too late. The figures are closer and now they’ve seen me.
They don’t look particularly threatening, so when they stop, I walk toward them. Of course, when it comes to animal people, well, cousins don’t have to look tough to be tough, and vice v
ersa. I mean, Chaingang has a mouse under his skin and I have a mountain lion. How weird is that?
These two are slight, about my height with darker skin and straighter hair. A man and a woman, dressed in unbleached cotton trousers and tunics. The man has a sack hanging from one shoulder. He and the woman are holding hands.
I stare at them intently, trying to figure out what made Tío Goyo take off. The only thing I know is that they give me an old-cousin ping, and then I realize that I can actually see their animal shapes just outside of their skin, hovering around them like an aura. What I’m seeing is a pair of rabbits.
The mountain lion inside me rumbles with interest. The woman moves closer to her companion.
“Hey, skater boy,” somebody says from behind me.
I’m in the hall, heading to my next class. Turning, I find Ampora.
“I need to know where my stupid sister is,” she says.
“Really, dude? That’s how you ask for a favour—by dissing my friends?”
“Look, I kicked her out of the house last night and now Chaingang’s all on my ass about it. I need to know where she is.”
“You kicked her out?”
“Are you deaf? I just said that.”
“Dude, Chaingang’s going to be the least of your worries if anything happened to her.”
“What? Now you’re threatening me, too?”
“I don’t need to. Josh is going to tear a strip from you.”
She rolls her eyes and waves a hand like that’s nothing.
“Seriously?” I say. “You’re not afraid of the guy who shut down the Riverside Kings?”
Not to mention ripping apart a badass cousin that even Chaingang couldn’t take on. But I don’t say that aloud. I don’t have to.
Her expression gets uncertain and her face goes pale.
“I need to find her,” she says. “Help me out.”
I’d have more sympathy for her, except I figure she’s only interested in saving her own ass. Knowing her, she’d probably be glad if something bad happened to Marina. That’s not cool.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll look for her.”
But only because I’m worried myself.
“Where do you think we should start?” Ampora asks.
I shake my head. “There’s no ‘we’ here, dude. You’ve already done enough damage.”