Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [147]
“Must keep going,” he panted. “Keep going.”
With the two of us supporting him, we made our way across the park and toward the entrance gate as fast as we could. Then we ran across the street and stood outside one of the darkened row houses.
“Here?” Biko said, breathing hard.
It had better be here. I couldn’t go any farther. Not until I got my second wind.
“Yes,” Max panted. “Yes . . . Here . . . Safe . . . I think . . .”
Despite the complete absence of electricity in the city, we would see the lookout platform on the old watchtower quite clearly from here because there was so much meteorological—or mystical—activity directly above it. The thunder made my head ache even at this distance, and the dancing light illuminated the platform so well that I was sure I could see Catherine’s blond hair swirling around her head in the violent wind. Her red silk robe was easy to spot as she raised her arms to exalt the dark loa whom she had summoned with the promise of a human sacrifice.
My gaze was still on her when the lightning came straight down from the churning black clouds and made her explode into hot red flames that were then sucked up into the sky. A pale pillar of ashes stood in her place for only a split-second, and then the wind began to disperse it.
“She promised them a human sacrifice,” I said in a stunned, breathless voice that scarcely sounded like mine.
“Well,” Biko said prosaically, “looks like they got one.”
“The Petro loa are deadly dangerous,” Max said, still breathing hard. “To make a promise which one cannot keep . . . invites their rage and punishment.”
25
“ Max!”I cried suddenly.
“Whoa!” Biko did a double-take so big he nearly fell down. “Don’t scare me like that! Not now. Didn’t you just see what we, uh, just saw? I’m a little rattled.”
“Lopez!” I shrieked. “Max! Lopez!”
I started to run in the direction of the foundation. Biko tackled me and stopped me.
“Lopez!” I wailed.
“He’s fine!” Biko shouted into my ear. “He’s fine! Lopez is fine!”
“What?” I panted in panic, clutching him. “What?”
He shook me by the shoulders, met my eyes, and said loudly into my face, “Lopez is okay. We found him. Puma and Jeff are with him now. He’s going to be all right.”
“He is?” I could barely choke out the words, I was so relieved.
“He’s fine,” Biko repeated. “Well, almost fine. A little hardheaded, if you ask me.”
I burst into tears and started wailing with relief.
“Uh, Max,” Biko said awkwardly. “Could you deal with this?”
“Of course.”
Max embraced me and patted my back while I wept copiously against his shoulder. Every so often, he murmured soothing words to the effect that Lopez would be fine.
After a little while, I pulled myself together enough to ask my two companions, “What happened?”
Far from being satisfied by his talk earlier in the day with Catherine Livingston, Max had felt dark suspicions about the woman after ending the conversation.
“So I returned to several questions that have been vexing me,” Max said, as we walked wearily in the direction of the foundation. “Why summon so much dark magic? There must be a purpose or goal, and yet we had not yet perceived it.”
“Power and money.” I glanced at the hilltop, recalling the words of my murderous ex-nemesis. “She said everything is always about that, in the end.”
“A simplistic view,” Max said. “But then, for all her education and achievement, she did not strike me as a woman of complex insight or emotional wisdom.”
“I’m with you, Max,” said Biko. “I never liked her.”
“I also continued to wonder what Shondolyn had been conditioned for. It must be an important role, since so much effort and risk had been invested in trying to gain influence over the girl. Unable to achieve a breakthrough in attempting to discern whom Shondolyn might be used to harm, I instead began to think about how she might be used as a victim. Which was when the prospect of human sacrifice occurred to me.”
“It never occurred to me,” said Biko. “Not once. And I’m glad. I don’t think I