Chapter 44 Ignacio
Ignacio
They made it across the plank and up to a different perch, passing Tezcán’s mirrors as they hurried on. Voices emanated from the obsidian glass. His father’s. Camila’s. Gabriel’s. He heard a scream from within.
“Help me, son!”
Ignacio’s stomach clenched. Mother.
“Please! Help me! I’m trapped. I need you!”
It wasn’t her. Tezcán was making a desperate move.
Bastard.
Esmeralda disappeared as she clambered up the ladder that led to the catwalk and crawled onto the metal platform. He was right behind her but expected her to be halfway across the walkway by the time he made it onto the landing. Instead, he found her frozen in place.
When he stood behind her, he realized why.
General Keara was there, blocking the path to their only chance of escape. He moved around Esmeralda and put his body before hers. He knew Keara had always intimidated Esmeralda the most. And rightly so. The general was a viper.
“Let us pass, Keara,” he ordered.
Keara flicked out her wrist and a baton with electrified prongs sizzled near her hip. “I am willing to do whatever I must to see you back in your father’s custody.”
“Like hell you will,” Esmeralda growled.
She leaned around Ignacio’s back and flung her slipper at the general’s face. The flimsy shoe bounced off Keara’s forehead with a comical thud.
Keara blinked.
Ignacio peered down at Esmeralda. Her face was splotchy, her lips cut and bleeding, but she shrugged with a humorous sort of glint. “I thought that would have a better effect. Worked with you the first time we saw each other again.”
He raised a brow. “That’s because you had a golden egg.”
Esmeralda sucked in a breath. “Watch out!”
Ignacio pushed Esmeralda further back on the catwalk before ducking to the right, just barely evading the general’s baton as she swiped her electrified weapon.
Keara snarled. She swung again. Ignacio bent low, picking up Esmeralda’s shoe.
He spun upward and used the slipper to smack the weapon out of Keara’s hand.
The general growled in fury and punched Ignacio hard across the cheek. She punched him again with a left hook.
“Don’t let her bully you like that!” Esmeralda shouted.
“Easier said than done!” he snapped.
He lunged forward but the general feinted right. She held out her foot, and Ignacio tripped, landing hard against the metal rungs. Keara was on top of him in an instant. He used his weight to spin onto his back, pulling himself out of her hold.
He stilled when Keara took out her pistol and pointed it at his skull.
“You will comply,” she spat.
Something buzzed in the air like a thousand angry hornets. Keara’s mouth gaped open as metal prongs stuck into her neck. Her skin radiated as if she had been lit from within like a candle. Her eye sockets glowed. Her teeth too.
Ignacio felt the dull ache of electricity sizzling from her skin to his.
Then, the buzzing stopped.
Keara sucked in a breath before roaring with rage. She whirled around and faced Esmeralda, who still held the baton. She jumped back before Keara could snag her.
Esmeralda smacked the baton on her palm, trying to get the electrical currents to work again. “Come on. Come on. Light back up, you fiend!”
Shakily, Keara rose to her feet. “I’m going to kill you, you little…”
Esmeralda swung her arm out and cracked the general across the chin.
General Keara wavered for a second. Her ankle wobbled when she stepped on Esmeralda’s slipper, and she lost her balance. A yelp escaped her before she tumbled over the catwalk railing.
Someone in the audience screamed.
Esmeralda stood there, her eyes wild with shock.
More screams rang out from below.
Esmeralda flung the baton out of her grasp as if it were on fire.
“Holy shit,” she panted. “I…I killed General Keara.”
Ignacio scrambled to his feet. He eased toward Esmeralda like she was a wounded animal. “It’s okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Her brows rose, and she blinked. “Oh, I don’t feel bad, if that’s what you think.”
Ignacio balked. “You don’t?”
“Well, sure, I do in a killing-is-immoral kind of way. I am human, but…General Keara was a witch. And not the good kind.” She patted Ignacio on the shoulder. “Come on, we have to keep going while the audience is thoroughly horrified and distracted.”
Ignacio could do nothing but snort. That was his girl. She was the fiercest person he’d ever known.
Together, they raced across the catwalk and clambered down the raggedy rungs of an attached ladder. The second both pairs of feet were on the ground inside a small dressing room, they ran toward the exit.
He grabbed Esmeralda and yanked her behind a clown buggy seconds before three of the ringmaster’s ratas ran into the room they had just left.
More of the ringmaster’s guards came.
Their hiding spot wouldn’t work for long.
His eyes roamed the backstage area. There were no other exits. He needed to come up with something quick. He spotted a costume lying in two pieces on the ground not far from where they were hidden.
“I’m going to grab those,” he mouthed.
He crouched low. Slowly, he poked his head out from behind the buggy.
When the guards had their backs to them, Ignacio stretched forward and snatched one of the pieces.
He handed it to Esmeralda before peeking at the guards again.
One of the ratas turned. Ignacio snapped back, held his breath, and waited.
A small group of dancers walked in, the sequined chains on their hips swishing.
In hushed and horrified tones, they spoke about the general’s death, about the ringmaster suddenly falling ill.
The ratas standing guard had the decency to look away as one of the performers stripped out of her garment.
Ignacio used the distraction to snatch the second piece of the costume.
“Good riddance,” one of the ladies said. “That woman was a witch.”
Esmeralda gave him a look as if to say See.
“She was the comandante’s hound,” the dancer continued. “They have already run through all our soldiers in the war, so now they have to go after anyone they can. They took my little brother to the front lines as a punishment for stealing boots.”
The performers grumbled and spoke of other stories they’d heard.
“All I know is that I’m sorry Paloma didn’t take a tumble too because I’d sure like a shot with that beau of hers,” a young woman with curly red hair said.
“You’re terrible,” the dancer next to her replied.
“What? He’s so fun to look at. I bet he’s fun to play with too.”
Ignacio snatched Esmeralda’s arm before she stomped out of their hiding spot. Judging from the fire in her eyes, she was getting ready to bop the lady right in the nose.
“Come on,” one of the women said. “Let’s go get skunked in ángel’s caboose before Comandante Olivera recognizes any of us.”
Ignacio motioned for Esmeralda to put on the rest of her costume. For once in her life, she obeyed without complaint.
But now, it was Ignacio’s turn to complain. For he had snatched a costume meant to look like a burro. And he was the ass end of it.