There was a single long metal bench along the left side of the cell, but it seemed to be “reserved” for the small group of tattooed bangers who guarded it like dogs and wouldn’t let anyone else anywhere near it. As soon as they had entered, Dean noticed a strange kind of hierarchy in the cramped space. Those higher up on the food chain were allowed to stand closer to the door, where you could almost catch a whiff of fresh air coming from the distant windows. Those at the other end of the spectrum were forced to hang out beside the long cement trough in the floor that stood in for a urinal, slanting down to a stinking hole in the far corner of the floor. Baby Malo was somewhere in the middle and Dean, by association, was allowed to stand beside him. Dean didn’t even want to think about what would have happened to him if he had been alone.
Dean wished there was room enough to pace. He was feeling anxious, frustrated and impotent. Even though he knew it would be a terrible idea, he was itching for someone to pick a fight with him, just to give him something to do with his hands, and somewhere else to take his head. There was no worse feeling in the world than knowing your friends and family were in danger and not being able to do a damn thing about it. He’d just have to count on Bobby to stay on it until Dean could find a way to get himself out of this mess.
“You know,” Dean said to Baby Malo, just to say something, “I could have happily lived the rest of my life without ever experiencing this particular odor.”
“This here is the high-roller suite,” Baby Malo said. “Wait till they process you and move you into the real cells.”
“This is seriously screwed, is what it is,” Dean said.
“You’re telling me?” Baby Malo said. “This is my third time for weapons.”
“It’s not just that,” Dean said. “I think somebody kidnapped my brother.”
“That’s messed up,” Baby Malo said, heavy eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “Your people better pay.”
“That’s why I’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Dean said.
“What’s your brother look like?” Baby Malo asked.
“Big.” Dean indicated Sam’s approximate height in the air, several inches above his own. “Six-four, 190. Brown hair, kinda longish. He was with a young Mexican-American girl with a bright-red streak in her hair.”
“Six-four?” Baby Malo’s frown deepened. “Doesn’t exactly sound like an easy snatch.”
“Look, I don’t know anything here,” Dean said, frustration closing his throat and making his voice tight. “All I know is what I heard.”
“Okay, listen,” Baby Malo said. “Lemme ask around a little. See if anyone has maybe heard something about it.”
Baby Malo moved through the crowd, talking low out of the corner of his mouth. Dean stood alone, clenching and unclenching his fists. Sam and Xochi were both perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but he couldn’t stop obsessing over where they were or what was happening to them. And what about Claudia? It made him absolutely crazy to be locked up like this.
Baby Malo worked his way back to Dean, shaking his head.
“Nobody knows nothing,” Baby Malo said. “No word of any big Norteamericano getting snatched by any of the usual gangs.”
A gruff male voice called out Dean’s name.
“Winchester?”
Two handsome, stone-faced Mexican guys who could have been twins were waiting on the other side of the door to the cage. Their get-up was remarkable similar to the uniforms of the police and armed guards. Black, military-style combat fatigues, bulletproof vests and black ball caps. The only obvious difference was that the now familiar word POLICIA on their caps was followed by the word “FEDERAL.”
“Federales?” Baby Malo whispered. “You in deep now, guero.”
“Take care of yourself,” Dean said. “And thanks.”
“You the one who better take care,” Baby Malo replied.
Dean came forward as the guard unlocked the door. There were some comments from the bangers on the bench, but Dean had no idea what any of it meant. The federales cuffed Dean again and led him through the sweltering station, out into the street. He was sizing up his captors and the street around them, seriously considering just making a crazy break for it when he spotted Xochi in the back of a big black SUV. Her head was down, hands obviously cuffed behind her back. He was glad to see her, relieved she was okay, but seeing her made him worry even more about Sam and Claudia.
The twins stuck Dean in the back seat with Xochi and then got into the front. The front and back of the SUV were separated by a heavy wire-gauge screen. There were no handles on the inside of the two back doors.
Dean was appalled to see Xochi sporting a shiny new black eye. Her shirt was torn and soaked with blood.
“Damn,” Dean said. “What did they do to you?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Most of this isn’t my blood. Those cops picked the wrong little girl to play with.”
Her voice sounded a little slushy, like she had a mouthful of marbles. He was kind of surprised when she leaned into him like she was about to kiss him on the cheek. But she didn’t kiss him, she whispered in his ear.
“These men are not federales,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her over the grumbling of the engine. “They are Nagual.”
THIRTY-TWO
Dean was too stunned to speak. They’d barely been in Mexico for six hours and things were already going to hell at the speed of light. The traffic along the main drag was horrible, snarled up and inching along so slowly that they were being regularly passed by pedestrians. There was some sort of massive accident up ahead and tempers were flaring hot, people hanging out of their cars and shaking their fists. The stench of exhaust made Dean’s eyes burn, even with all the windows rolled up.
“Where are they taking us?” Dean whispered.
“They are probably planning to take us out into the desert and kill us,” she said. “But don’t worry.”
She did something so peculiar then, that for a minute Dean had no idea how to respond. She bent down and pressed her lips to the palm of one of his cuffed hands. He felt the heat of her breath and a brief flicker of her tongue against his skin that sent chills down his sweaty back. He really didn’t need to add vaguely, pointlessly, horny to the stew of anger and fear and worry already churning in his aching belly. It took him several baffled seconds to realize what she had actually done: She’d spat something into his hand. Something small and metal. A key. A handcuff key.
“Will you marry me?” he whispered, twisting his fingers and working the key into the lock on his cuffs.
She smiled. “Get your cuffs off,” she said. “Then hand me the key and follow my lead, okay?”
He did as she requested, keeping an eye on the twins in the front. They both remained silent, facing forward. When she had freed herself from her own cuffs, she leaned into him again.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” he replied.
She sat completely still, eyes wide and watching a battered minivan pull up on the driver’s side of their SUV. The minivan inched ahead of them, just enough so that its dented flank blocked the driver’s side door from opening but not the rear door. Dean already knew how fast Xochi was, but it still amazed him to watch her in action. She kicked out the back window, reached through the hole to open the door from the outside and took off down the busy street in the time it took Dean to suck in a single breath.
The guy driving hit the breaks, swearing and trying to open his door. It opened a little less than six inches and then banged into the minivan. The guy on Dean’s side was already out and drawing down on Xochi’s running back with some kind of preposterous Dirty Harry hand cannon.
“Get down!” Dean yelled, diving out of the SUV and taking off after Xochi. He heard shots and the screams of bystanders as everyone in the street ran for cover.
Dean risked a look back and saw that the driver had climbed across the seat and out the passenger side. He had a snub
-nosed pistol in his fist. It looked like a toy next to the cannon wielded by his clearly overcompensating buddy.
Up ahead, Xochi was zigzagging like a rabbit through the frozen traffic, staying low and never providing a clear target.
Dean could see bullets striking sparks off an abandoned cab a few feet ahead of him and before he could register how dangerous that was, the cab went up in a toxic cloud of choking black smoke and shimmering flame.
Dean threw himself down on his belly between two cars just as the cab blew with a strangely flat, eardrum-crushing sound like giant clapping wool-gloved hands. Dean felt like that same giant had just boxed his ears.
When he dared to look up again, Dean saw mad chaos all around. Women grasping crying children, running through the street. Men leaning out of windows to see what was going on. A dozen small retail stands had been knocked over. People selling corn-on-the-cob, bootlegged DVDs and magazines, toys and cheap silver jewelry all had their wares scattered into the street. Dean could see Xochi peeking up between a beater hatchback and a more fortunate taxicab and ran toward her.
When he reached her, she gripped his hand and pulled him toward the debris of the street vendors.
“They won’t change their form in front of all these people,” Xochi said. “So we have a chance to outrun them. But I have a better idea.”
She ran through the broken mess of plastic toys, looking back over her shoulder toward the twins, almost daring them to follow her. Of course, they did. As she ran, she scooped up a black-velvet tray of cheesy silver rings and pendants.
“Put these on,” Xochi said as they ran, handing Dean a handful of rings. “Both hands.”
He got what she was planning almost right away, so he did as she’d said, cramming as many goofy pot-leaf and skull rings as he could fit onto all his fingers. Moments later, she ducked into a little bakery and Dean followed close behind.
Inside the bakery, two older women were decorating a wedding cake. One was fat and sweet-faced, wider than she was tall with white hair coiffed into a fancy updo and wearing a floral apron. The other was pale and thin with a large, narrow nose, dyed red hair cut mannishly short and pink T-shirt that said “SEXY” in glittery silver letters. When they saw Dean and Xochi, they froze, pastry bags full of pearly white frosting held up like weapons.
Xochi asked them something in Spanish, and the fat one responded, indicating a door in the rear of the store. Xochi ran for the door, which opened into a narrow back alley full of trash and illegible graffiti.
“When the first guy comes through the door,” Xochi said, flattening herself out against the wall. “Let him have it.”
“Right,” Dean said, pressing his back to the opposite side of the door and trying to keep his breathing under control.
He was still scared, but it was the good kind of scared. The action, adrenalin-fueled kind of scared, rather than the trapped, helpless kind of scared he’d been feeling since the arrest. This was what he was good at, kicking monster ass. He had this.
The first Nagual came barreling through the bakery door and Dean spun toward him, firing off a straight right and aiming for exposed skin, for the guy’s unshaven chin. He connected, a spike of hot pain jolted his wrist, but the guy went down like he’d been shot, skin burning and blistering from the impact of the silver rings. Dean dropped to one knee beside him and followed through with a few more for good measure.
When the second shifter came through the door, Xochi garroted him from behind with a thick silver chain. The silver smoked and burned like it was molten hot, sinking deep into the flesh of the Nagual’s throat. He fell to his knees, then collapsed on one side in the slimy gutter. Xochi let him go and relieved him of the enormous gun, which turned out to be a Smith & Wesson model 500 .50 caliber Magnum. Dean took the snub-nosed .38 from the shifter he’d KO’d and swiftly patted him down for other weapons. He found a full-sized .45, a nasty-looking telescoping baton, a Leatherman multipurpose tool that would definitely come in handy, and a flint knife kind of like Xochi’s, only this one had a hideous, skull-faced woman carved into the handle.
“Leave the Nagual knife,” Xochi said. She had found a similar one on her shifter and let it drop to the pavement like it was rotten. “It is unclean. An instrument of evil.”
Dean looked the flint knife over. Shrugged. Let it drop.
The two ladies from the bakery stuck their heads out the back door, expressions curious. Xochi said something that sounded apologetic. The sweet-faced one in the floral apron leaned over and spat on the prone body of the shifter who’d been garroted.
“Pinchés federales!” she said.
Dean had to stifle a laugh.
“Wow,” he said. “How does she really feel?”
“People here have no love for the federales,” Xochi told Dean. “Many are corrupt, tied in with the drug gangs.” She leaned in closer to drop her voice and whisper. “It’s better if grandmas like these two don’t know what these men really are. Safer for them.”
Dean got it. He nodded.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
THIRTY-THREE
As they made their way on foot back to the hotel, Dean filled Xochi in on what was going on with Sam. She was furious; she looked ready to slug someone. Anyone.
“Dean,” she said, hand on his arm and looking up at him with emotion leaking around the edges of her intense gaze. “We’ll find Sam. I swear to you, on my mother’s soul. I won’t let anything happen to him.”
Dean nodded and looked away, thinking of what had happened to Xochi’s own little brother. Hoping she was right.
“This is my fault,” she said, pressing a clenched fist to her temple. “So stupid of me. We should have stayed together.”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “But what would have happened to Claudia if she’d been arrested with us? Maybe you can fight off those scumbags with your bare hands, but I doubt she could. Maybe it was wrong to bring her at all.”
“Well,” Xochi said. “Better she be with us than following her mother on her own. Besides, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare her, but the Nagual will be tracking her by now. They know she is our link to the Borderwalker and they will want to take her out.”
Dean felt like bad luck was shadowing him everywhere he turned and sloshing over onto everyone around him. It seemed like anybody he’d ever set out to protect always ended up worse off than they would have been if they’d never met him.
Xochi stopped on the way to buy a pair of prepaid cell phones from a small electronics shop and gave one to Dean.
“Call your friend Bobby,” she said. “I will make some calls and see what I can dig up about who might have taken Sam.”
Dean turned on the phone and dialed Bobby.
“You touch a hair on that boy’s head, so help me...” Bobby said.
“Bobby,” Dean said. “Take it easy, it’s me.”
“Dean,” Bobby said. “Jeez, what the hell happened to you?”
“Got arrested,” Dean said. “But I released myself on my own recognizance. Xochi’s with me.”
“Who?”
“Yeah, well never mind that now,” Dean said. “What have you heard from the people who have Sammy?”
“Nothing since that first call.”
“Did you wire the money?” Dean asked.
“Not yet,” Bobby said. “Not that I’ve got that kind of money laying around, but they’ve given me till midnight and I didn’t want to do anything until I heard back from you. I tried calling the American Consulate to see if there was any way to spring you, but they’ve been giving me the runaround.”
“Okay, just hang tight, man,” Dean said. “Xochi’s making inquiries.”
“So who is this Xochi person anyway?”
“Long story,” Dean replied.
“A female kinda story?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Dean asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Bobby said. “It’s just n
ice to hear that you’re getting back into the action.”
“Bobby,” Dean said. “I’m hanging up now. I have to find my brother.”
He ended the call.
Xochi was talking a mile a minute into her phone as they rounded the corner and came upon the hotel where Sam and Claudia were supposed to be holed up. She ended her call and cranked up her pace, nearly running to the double glass doors.
“I’m not finding anything yet,” she said. “But I’m not giving up. Let’s go in and see if maybe Claudia is still here.”
The lobby of the hotel was a strange sort of mash-up of bland, corporate franchise and bizarre, over-the-top local color. There were a few stray, striped polyester couches that looked like they’d been stolen from a Best Western in Scranton back in 1981. When Dean looked closer, he noticed that they were the same approximate color scheme, but didn’t exactly match. The carpet was hot pink, which also didn’t exactly match. Framed swap-meet paintings cluttered the walls, a strange, incompatible mix of gory bullfighting scenes, cute little boys in oversized sombreros and images of the Virgin Mary. Hovering over the blond fake-wood check-in desk was an enormous, asymmetrical brass and glass chandelier that could have doubled as some kind of medieval torture device. The mousy young girl at the desk looked like she lived in constant fear of being decapitated by that light fixture at any moment.
“Hey there,” Dean said. “I’m looking for my brother. He’s a big guy, about...”
“Mister Swierczynski?” she asked. “Just checked in this morning with his niece,” she looked down at her book. “Jennifer. With that...”
Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss Page 16
