Lucio places the knife in my palm and closes my fingers over it. “Come on.” He grabs a helmet from his handlebars and puts it on my head, smashing the frizzball.
I swing one leg over Clementine and lean against Lucio when he sits down in front of me. I feel the sweat on his back through our T-shirts—his covered in orange and white stripes while mine is bright green—but it doesn’t gross me out. Instead, I lean against him, holding him tight. I don’t want to face what we’re about to face alone.
As the bike’s engine roars to life, Lucio looks back at me with concern. “You ready to do some real luiseach work?” I can tell he’s not sure we can handle this, but he’s determined to try.
I nod. I will help fill the gap in his confidence. My fingertips are tingling, there are butterflies in my stomach, and my breath is coming quick and short. It takes me a second to recognize it, but it’s undeniable: I’m exhilarated.
I hold tight as we drive, squinting in the sunlight. I glance around furtively as we ride along, as though I think Helena might jump out at any second, hiding behind the trees with their enormous leaves.
There would be a million places to hide in this jungle.
But the trees around us are empty. Lucio veers to the right so suddenly, I have to dig my fingers into his rib cage to keep from falling. I can feel his heartbeat beneath my fingertips, feel his chest rise and fall with each breath, and soon we are breathing in unison.
I feel the town before I see it. I mean, I feel the heat of a place on fire. The taste of smoke fills my throat. I can barely breathe.
The town appears before us as suddenly as a mirage. The road widens, and there are dilapidated stucco structures on either side of us, not one more than a single story high. The only colors are the brown dirt at our feet, the blue sky above us, and the orange fire in between, climbing so high that it all but blocks out the green of the surrounding trees.
Lucio turns off the bike.
People are rushing from one building to another, trying to douse the flames, desperate to keep their town from burning to dust. Their wretched shouts fill the air, even thicker than the smoke.
“Don’t worry,” Lucio says suddenly, jumping off the motorcycle. “You’re safe here.”
I must look at him like he’s speaking Japanese—safe, with the flames rising higher and higher and a demon who should not have been able to turn dark in the first place, just waiting to fight us off? I mean, I know that technically a demon can’t kill me, but I wouldn’t exactly call this safe. “I didn’t mean that,” Lucio adds quickly. “I mean we’re still technically on land that’s part of Llevar la Luz. Helena can’t get to you, even here.” No wonder the trees we passed were empty. I wonder just how big Llevar la Luz is.
“Do these people know why their town is on fire?” I have to shout to be heard over the roar of the flames. We walk further into town. Hot ashes float down around us like snowflakes from hell.
“Not exactly,” Lucio answers. “This town has been here for centuries. Its inhabitants have passed down story after story of the strange things going on at the campus in the jungle.”
“They know about us?”
“Let’s just say that around here they have a deeply held respect for the afterlife.”
“But nothing like this has ever happened before,” I insist. “You said spirits don’t usually turn dark this close to the equator.” A hot wind kicks up and swirls around us as the townspeople desperately try to squelch the flames.
“I know. Things are different now.”
“Aidan thinks the difference might be me. But what if it’s the growing darkness?”
Lucio cocks his head to the side. “It might be. This never used to happen. And like I said, it’s become more organized recently. Plus, Aidan has a theory that there’s someone, something who sensed the rift in the luiseach community and is using that weakness to summon dark spirits.” My heart nearly stops. Organized. Weakness. Rift.
“This all started when I was born, didn’t it?” Maybe it doesn’t matter whether the spirits are behaving differently because of me or because of the growing darkness. Maybe one is connected to the other.
Lucio looks at me, knowing I’m not going to like his answer. “Over the last sixteen years Aidan’s detected a shift among spirits. He doesn’t know what it means yet, but he’s certain there’s a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Dark spirits and demons are growing stronger.”
I bet Nolan could have helped figure out the pattern. I can only imagine how different all of this would be if he had been here with me since the beginning, performing research for Aidan, trying just as hard as Aidan to find answers. Maybe he would have even found some.