Mireya let the rifle tumble from her grasp, and reached out to Jeff. "Help me up," she gasped through the pain that throbbed from her foot and into her leg. "Jeff, help me!" she said as he held her foot without moving. "Those things—!"
He lifted his face to look. His eyes were red with grief and horror. Mireya stared back at him, and felt fear—though of what, she did not know—close her throat.
"I let them out, Yiya," Jeff mumbled. "It's my fault. I let them out, and when I saw them I panicked and threw the orb even though you were standing too close. I threw it and it knocked you out but it still didn't stop them, and one of them—"
"Jeff!"
His eyes fell but still he kept mumbling to himself. She grimaced. If he wasn't going to help her, then she'd have to help him! She sat up and tried jerking her foot from his grasp.
That's when she realized something was seriously wrong. She couldn't move her foot, or even her leg. She felt nothing below the knee, and nothing moved when she tried.
But it wasn't until Jeff's hand fell from her foot, and she saw the neat little holes in the top of her boot, that she understood what had happened.
"Jeff," she said through the fear and horror that like a clinging fog rose to choke her. "Will!" she said when he didn't respond.
He jerked his head up. "What did you—?"
"Will! You have to get out of here. Before—"
"I'm not going to leave you." He looked around, a wild expression lighting up his face. "I'll get you out, Yiya," he said, and scrambled toward her, grabbing her shoulders. "I'll get you out and—"
"You can't get me out! You can't get me out and down the hill and back to—"
"I'll get you out!" He tried picking her up, but she was a dead weight. "Yiya, I'm not—!"
"There's no time, Will! I'll never make it, l've only got minutes and it would take you hours to—!"
Jeff collapsed, burying his face in her shoulder, and sobbing there. Mireya numbly lifted one hand to cradle the back of his head.
"I fucked it up, Yiya!" Jeff cried. "You're right, I shouldn't have come, I—"
"I couldn't have got even this far without you," she consoled him. "I couldn't have even got past the guards."
"That's right!" Jeff's voice twisted into a snarl. "I walked you right past them and right into the mouth of that—"
"Will!"
"Everything I touch dies! My mom, my dad—"
"And you'll die too, if you don't get out of here!"
"I don't care!"
Mireya gripped the back of his head, desperate to hold onto him before he—the young man she had fallen in love with—fell apart completely. He was like a boy again—lost, confused, wild with fear. She reached for the one thing that might still give him hope.
"Marty still needs you," she murmured in his ear.
He stiffened.
But before either could speak again, heavy footsteps sounded. Jeff held her close, but Mireya twisted onto her side, resting on a leg that was now dead from the knee down.
Three men, their rifles at the ready, burst from the corridor to loom over them. "Ninguém tem permissão para acessar este lugar," one shouted. "Identifique-se."
Jeff pulled his wallet from one pocket and flashed it at them with a snarl. "Abaixe a arma, ou seremos forçados a atirar!" Suddenly, there was a pistol in his hand.
For a moment he and the guards stared each other down. Then, to Mireya's astonishment, the men wilted and drooped. The rifles fell with a clatter to the ground, and they swayed limply before folding up at the knees and falling senseless to the floor.
A fourth man, who had been standing behind, stepped daintily over them. Jeff's eyes flashed, and he turned the pistol on him. "Dr. Gus!" he hissed.
"Mr. Harrison, this isn’t the time for any foolishness," the doctor replied. His tone was cool and calm, even soothing. "We must move quickly."
Jeff's mouth twisted into a rictus, and his finger trembled on the trigger. "You were behind it all this time, weren't you? That's your lab, your monsters—!"
"Please, Mr. Harrison! Don't be silly, I'm—"
"Then what are you doing here? What were you doing with them?" Jeff waved the pistol at the fallen guards.
"I followed you. Just as you followed Mireya, and for the same reason." His expression turned very grave as he looked past Jeff, at Mireya's wounded foot. "To be on hand in case this happened."
--
After brushing past Jeff, Dr. Gus knelt by Mireya and removed her boot. After examining the wounds, he twice shot a syringe into her foot, near each wound. Her pain immediately eased, but she remained numb. The doctor then helped her to stand, and by bracing her from each side he and Jeff were able to help her hobble down the corridor.
They took a different turning, down a dark shaft that led into the mine proper. There were guards waiting for them, and these, after a quick word from Dr. Gus, helped the company into a motorized cart that followed a track back to the entrance. There, they helped the trio into an off-road vehicle, and Dr. Gus drove Jeff and Mireya back to town and to the inn.
"The humors," he explained to Jeff during the drive, when asked why the guards had been so helpful. "They say a kind word and a gun work better than just a kind word. But I find that soft talk, a plausible story, and a little adjustment to the humors works even better. There was even a time," he continued, and his tone turned plummy, "when I thought my place would be as a field operative. But Charles saw where I'd be happier and more useful. Still, it's pleasing to get out of the lab and do a little field work."
Back at the inn, after they had made Mireya comfortable on the bed, Dr. Gus gave her pills, then drew Jeff aside. "Here," he said, "now let me help you a little." He touched him at the temples, and at the side of the neck, as though feeling for a pulse. "There. How's that?"
"B-better," Jeff stammered. He frowned with puzzlement.
"Calmer? More clear-headed? Good." He smiled as Jeff, his gaze more relaxed and the red drained from his eyes, nodded."You were flooded with melancholia, and your choler was spiking to compensate. Your humors should be in better balance now."
"What about Mireya? And those things back in the mine?"
"Forget about the mine."
"But we came out here to—"
"Mr. Harrison, there are times when you must cut your losses. As for Mireya, I have succeeded in buying us some hours. But what comes next—" He put a heavy hand on Jeff's shoulder. "It depends on you."
--
Dr. Gus and Jeff left the room, and Mireya rested in the dark. She felt calm, despite a numbness in her leg, as though her leg had been amputated below the knee. As the long minutes passed, she stared at the ceiling and let her mind drift.
She had heard that, on the brink of death, memories flood back. So there returned to her now memories of her mother practicing medicine, and her boasts that her daughter would follow in her footsteps. And of the day she day she first showed real courage—the day she told her mother that, rather than becoming a doctor, she’d become a hunter.
Mami. Mamita, she prayed, and her eyes welled with tears. I wanted so hard to fulfill what you couldn’t. I swore I’d find one of them. I thought it would honor you.
But I was wrong.
I’m sorry, Mamita! I understand you now, how you'd rather die than see me dead. That's what I want for Jeff, what you wanted for me. But I let pride shape my life, and now I am hurting him as I thought you hurt me. And I couldn't even fulfill my promise to you.
I'm sorry for Papi too, sorry for Vane. I should’ve listened. I should’ve been wise, like you.
But now... I hope that won’t matter anymore. I hope that, wherever you are, I will see you once again.
Then she felt a warm hand rubbing her hair, and a bright smile burning on her heart.
--
Evening was falling when Jeff rejoined Mireya in the room. His face was drawn and pale. "How are you feeling?" he asked as he settled on the edge of the bed. He picked up her hand, and squeezed it.
"Maintaining. You?"
He didn't answer, and his gaze was distant.
"You're not going to do anything stupid," Mireya said, "like go back to the mine."
"No, not stupid like that." He continued to stare past her, at something that seemed to be impossibly distant. "Dr. Gus says it wouldn't do any good, even if I caught one."
Mireya felt her throat swelling shut, but it wasn't with fear or grief for herself, but for him.
"Will," she said, "we must never despair. Even when—"
"I'm not despairing," he said gruffly. "I'm thinking."
"About what?"
His eyes shifted, and he saw her again. But he didn't answer. Instead, he squeezed her hand, then rose off the bed and went to the door. Dr. Gus was waiting on the other side when he opened it. "Well?" the doctor asked after he had stepped inside.
"I need camphor," Jeff said. His voice clear and strong, but Mireya caught a queer note inside it, as though he was speaking more to himself than to the doctor. "Aqua fortis – nitric acid. Some kind of resin; anything. And some paper."
Dr. Gustavo drew a small notepad from his jacket pocket. "Would this be large enough?"
"Yes." Jeff took the notepad and ripped a page from it, then accepted a pen proffered by the doctor. He sat back on the edge of the bed and, cupping the sheet in his palm, began to draw on it. Mireya sat up for a better look. She watched as he drew a box and inscribed a pentagram within it. Then he laid the pen aside and touched the pentagram with the tip of his finger.
"Biztrekon-gatuta-e!" he cried.
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