The Lord of Opium

“It was Waitress. She came to the kitchen, and I told her to go to bed, but she didn’t. She hung around like a dog that wants to tell you something, and I even shouted at her. Then I realized that she wanted me to follow her. The minute I got here, she took off.”

“Celia sent a message to me,” Fiona added. “I can tell you it gave me the collywobbles to see all those broken dishes. I thought Waitress had gone mad—eejits do, sometimes, although mostly they wander off or lose coordination—”

“She didn’t do it,” whispered Matt, and paid for it with a flare of pain.

“Don’t talk,” said Celia.

Cienfuegos returned—Matt hadn’t been aware he was gone—and said, “I’ve readied the hovercraft.”

“How many passengers can it take?”

“Three. Me, Fiona, and Matt.”

“Oh, dear! I wanted to go,” said Celia.

“The small hovercraft is the fastest, and time is important,” Cienfuegos said. “Don’t worry. If things work out, we’ll be back before you know it.”

“Perhaps I could take the place of Fiona.”

Cienfuegos laughed. “The limit isn’t numbers but weight, mi caramelito. You weigh twice as much as she does.”

“No,” whispered Matt.

“What’s that?” The jefe bent down to hear.

“No Fiona,” said Matt.

“I’m sorry, mi patrón. If I took Celia, we couldn’t get off the ground.”

“Mirasol.”

Cienfuegos straightened up and brushed back his hair. “Oh, brother! He wants the girl.”

“Mirasol . . . or I won’t go.” Matt had used up all his strength. He waited.

“What about me? Am I chopped liver or something?” cried Fiona. “First the doctors dumped on me and then the nurses, nasty things. I’m glad they’re all dead! Fine! Go ahead and take your stupid eejit. I’m going back to the hospital, and I hope you crash!”

Matt heard her slam the door, but he was too tired to care. “How fast can you get Waitress here, Celia?” Cienfuegos said. “She can tranquilize the patient, if nothing else.”

15

DR. RIVAS

The stars gleamed through the transparent ceiling of the hovercraft. Matt was too dazed to recognize any of them except for the Scorpion Star. It was in the south, as always, and glittered with a red brilliance. He was lying on a stretcher behind the two seats. In the right chair was Mirasol. In the left was Cienfuegos, piloting the craft.

“There’s a water bottle in front of you, Waitress,” said the jefe. “Take it to the patrón and drip it into his mouth until he tells you to stop. Move carefully so you don’t tip the craft.” Matt was surprised to see that Mirasol understood such a complicated order. She knelt beside the stretcher with barely a whisper of disturbance in their flight and carefully gave him the water.

“Enough.” He stayed her hand. “Thank you.”

Cienfuegos laughed. “I keep telling you courtesy is wasted on her.”

“Isn’t,” said Matt. He wanted to say more, that she’d saved his life, that she cared, otherwise she wouldn’t have fetched Celia. But he was too weak. Meanwhile, he found it soothing to have her near.

The hovercraft was moving at three hundred miles an hour, according to Cienfuegos, yet there was no turbulence. A field of energy repelled all but the fiercest winds. The jefe said they could go through a thunderstorm, but at this time of year there were none to worry about.

“Where . . . are we going?” Matt asked.

“To Paradise,” said Cienfuegos.

Paradise, thought the boy. That sounded nice. Now that he had a soul, the angels wouldn’t turn him away. Or Mirasol either. He would argue for her.

“It’s the heart of El Patrón’s empire,” explained the jefe. “It has the best hospital in the world, although right now there’s only one doctor. The rest died at the old man’s funeral.”

El Patrón killed them because he wanted the best possible care in the afterlife, Matt thought. I wonder if you can get sick in heaven. Mirasol wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, and he realized that no order had been given for her to do this. She was doing it on her own initiative.

The sky began to soften as dawn approached. The stars went out one by one, with the Scorpion Star lasting the longest.

“We’re circling to go up a valley,” said Cienfuegos. The hovercraft dipped, and Matt saw white domes here and there among the mesquite trees. They passed over a huge dome that dwarfed all the others. It had a slit in the top like the piggy bank Celia had once given him as a child. She’d handed him shiny new centavos to insert, but Matt hadn’t seen the point of that.