by Tim Miller
“You think so?” Santiago walked inside and sat down. “Fuck. Maybe he’s working with Beltran. Fuck.”
“No way, man. Beltran doesn’t want a war any more than we do.” Gustavo looked at his phone as it buzzed. “Sable just texted me. She said she’s not fucking with dead bodies in the middle of the fucking night.”
“You tell that bitch, fuck. Goddammit. I want to know what happened! Tell her triple the pay. One for each body. Plus a bonus for the inconvenience.”
Gustavo entered the message.
“OK. She said she’s on the way.”
“That’s my girl.”
“How did you find her?”
“Kind of by accident. I was one of her, um clients for her other business. She kind of mentioned something weird that happened after she was in a car accident. I wanted to see if she could do it again so I paid her some money to try it on a corpse. Sure enough, he was looking around talking and shit.”
“I’ve never watched her do it, man. I don’t want to.”
“You should, Gustavo. It’s some crazy shit. Might blow your mind. I know you like Sable.”
“Yeah. She’s fine as fuck but, damn. That’s like devil shit man. Waking up the dead. No fucking way. I’m Catholic. That’s like satanic shit.”
“How many people you kill this week?”
“Only two. Why?”
“And you’re a good Catholic?”
“I go to confession. Look at you! What are you?”
“I am Esteban. That is all I need, my friend.”
They got in the car and headed to the safe house. When they arrived, the van was already sitting outside. Inside, Santiago’s men had already set up each body on its own table. Both bodies’ heads had been severed, but the heads were sitting next to the bodies on the tables. It had been awhile since she had worked on a decapitated body. As long as the head was present it still worked. The only time she couldn’t do anything was on a body badly decomposed or burned. They waited several minutes before the SUV pulled up and Sable climbed out. She was wearing a gray hoodie while her friend was dressed like she was about to go dance on a pole.
“Who the fuck is this?” Santiago asked.
“Nice to see you too, Santiago. She’s my friend. I didn’t want to come out here alone. Is that a problem?”
“You’ve never brought a guest. This isn’t a plus one. You’re working.”
“Right. She knows all about what I do. She’s fine.”
“She stays outside.”
“Fine.” Sable looked to Maria. “Just stand outside for a bit. This won’t take very long.”
Maria nodded and headed out.
“All right,” Sable said. “So which one is first?”
Chapter 6
“Motherfuck! That hurts!” Spider’s disembodied head screamed. Sable stood over him squeezing and stretching a length of his intestines. Santiago stood by watching.
“Then fucking tell me what happened!”
Spider looked around as he saw what Sable was doing to him and looked at her.
“Oh no! Oh shit! You’re her! You’re Sable! Fuck! I’m dead aren’t I! No! No! No! Fuck! What’s wrong with my head? Did they cut off my head? Oh God. Oh my God!” Spider crossed himself and began mumbling something in Spanish. She looked at Santiago.
“What the fuck is he doing?”
“He’s praying.”
She jerked on his intestine, and his eyes snapped open while he screamed.
“Stop that! No prayer can help you. You want to go to hell, keep fucking with me. I rip your guts out while you’re awake like this and you go straight to fucking hell. So I’m going to ask you again if you’re done flipping out. What happened?”
“All right! All right! That guy Henry.”
“Henry who?”
“Henry Thomas. Henry J. Thomas. Owns some shitty pawn shop. We provide his heroin, which he sells through his shop. Dude showed up and went all crazy. He did this thing.”
“What thing? What are you talking about?”
“Can you bring me back for good? Like, do you have to send me back? Can’t you just patch me up and I’ll walk out of here?”
“I’ll rip your guts right to fucking hell. How’s that sound?”
“Ok, shit! I don’t know what he did. He waved his hand around all weird. Said he could feel our pain. Then like I started to remember everything. I remembered my mom’s boyfriend beating the shit out of me. I remembered getting stabbed when I was in jail. I remembered everything. Everything bad that ever happened to me and it like was all in my brain at once. Like a movie on fast forward. Then he made a fist and like punched the air. Suddenly my head hurt like it was on fire and then I was out. Next thing I remember is you doing whatever you’re doing.”
“So this Henry guy didn’t lay a finger on you. Killed both of you by just waving his hands around and making you feel your own pain?”
“Yeah. Said he can put all our pain into a little mental bullet he called it. Then said he just had to fire. Just like that and you’re dead.”
Sable looked around and thought about it, trying to figure out what this meant. In all her years doing this sort of thing, she’d never come across someone like her. She hadn’t seen anyone remotely like her. The witches she met earlier had done some spells, but she hadn’t seen any direct result. They were things like prosperity and wellness spells and shit. None of it made sense to her. Eugene rambled on about doing what is right and to harm none. What was the point of being a witch if you couldn’t turn assholes into lumps of shit?
“What the fuck?” she looked at Santiago.
“That sounds like a bunch of bullshit,” Santiago said. “Can you believe that? Mental bullets? What the fuck is he talking about?”
“Well, considering I’m talking to a dead guy, I’d say it's feasible. You saw how their bodies were. Sounds like he just scrambles their brains.”
“That’s fucking brutal, man,” Santiago said.
“Yeah it is.” She looked back at Spider. “Anything else?”
“What? No. I mean he killed me or whatever. Damn that sounds fucked up to say. Hey. Can I have some last words before you put me back? How about my mom? Can you bring my mom here so I can tell her goodbye at…” before he could finish she ripped his intestines apart as his eyes went wide and he went silent. His eyes frozen open in terror as his mouth hung wide open. Blood and brown sludge oozed from the loose entrails as she stepped away. Santiago was glaring at her.
“Why did you do that?”
“I was all done.”
“You tore his guts. That sends him to hell. You told me that before. He was one of my men. Why you send my man to hell?”
“He’s a shithead. I can’t bring him back anyway. Besides, I don’t even know if that’s true. One of the dead guys said it once. Could have been bullshit.”
“So why do you do it?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case some asshole deserving of hell happens to escape it. I’ll make sure he gets there.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if that doesn’t do anything?”
“Want me to try it on you?”
“Go clean up.”
“Is my friend outside, still? Is she ok?”
“She’s fine. No need to do the other body. We know what we need.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Against Henry? And his mental bullets? I’ll shoot him from far enough away with a real bullet. Won’t be that hard. This magic bullshit means nothing to me. I’ll shoot you one day if I have to.”
He’d never threatened Sable before. She dismissed it as him being under pressure. Usually, he was pretty much in control of things when he brought her in. In this case, it was totally out of control and if he didn’t recover the stolen drugs, his bosses would probably rip his own guts out. She wondered if they’d have her come and read him. That would be weird, but interesting. She went into the bathroom and re
moved her apron, dumping it into the trash bag they had placed for her. Once she scrubbed her hands and arms she went outside where Maria was talking to the driver.
“All done?”
“Yes. All done.”
“Sweet! Want to go back to the party or head home?”
“You kidding me? That was not a party. More like a magic show.”
“Oh, come on. Not everyone is endowed with mighty power like you are. Some of us have to, like, work with nature and the planet to tap into our hidden powers.”
“Ok. I’m just tired. Let’s go home,” Sable said as she climbed into the Suburban.
Chapter 7
Henry sped down the street and called up Jimmy.
“Hey. You wanna work for me? We got work to do. Santiago and his guys were just at the shop. I flew outta there. Stop by the gas station and pick me up. We got an errand to run.”
He hung up and headed through San Antonio’s south side. He cruised down Military onto Zarzamora. After a few blocks, there was a convenience store he usually did meet-ups at. Jimmy arrived a short time later. Henry grabbed the bag and jumped into Jimmy’s car.
“So, now what?” Jimmy asked.
“I need a crew. A real crew. You and me can only do so much.”
“How we gonna do that?”
“How did I get you? Let’s head to see Paul Jiminez. I’m sure he’ll buy the heroin, and we’ll see if we can get some men from him.”
“He’s one of Beltran’s men. He won’t buy shit from you. He’ll shoot us both.”
“No, he won’t.”
On the drive, Jimmy looked over at Henry.
“Hey, that thing you can do. Why did you just do it to Santiago and his guy? You took two guys down easy when Spider came at you. Yet you just up and ran here.”
“I don’t know, to be honest. Was just a reaction. I had been expecting Spider to pull something. He’d been acting weird the last few times. Showing lots more attitude, trying to throw his weight around. So I was kind of prepared. These guys caught me off guard. I was afraid it wouldn’t work if I couldn’t concentrate right.”
“How do you do it? I mean did you learn it? You just figure it out?”
“Hard to explain. I was yelling at an employee who had fucked up in the store one day, and suddenly he was all crying and shit. I apparently was doing it then. So I tried it out on a few of them here and there. First time I really let go and went for it was with you guys. It worked like I suspected it would. No idea how I’m able to do it.”
“It’s fucking crazy, man. Just don’t use it on me. That’s all I ask. I’m a good employee; I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Hey, no reason to.”
They pulled up outside a run-down nightclub with cars parked all over the lot and along the street. The men climbed out and headed inside. One of the doormen recognized Henry and took him to the back. Even though Henry had never worked for Jiminez or Beltran they’d long had an understanding of who was selling what, in which part of town. For the most part, they managed to stay out of each other’s way. When they stepped inside, Paul was in a back lounge of the club, shooting pool with a group of men, with a couple scantily clad women hanging out. He was short and muscular, with a crooked nose like a boxer’s, yet as far as anyone knew, he’d never been in a real fight.
“Henry! What brings you here! And what do you have with you?”
“I thought we could do some business. I’m getting out of the drug trade. I’m moving on to some greener pastures. I thought you might like a good deal on some product.
Paul put his pool stick down and looked down at the bag Henry was holding.
“That wouldn’t happen to be the same product that was stolen from one of Santiago’s men was it?”
“I don’t know nothing about that.”
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t. Someone offed Spider and another guy. Beltran called me asking if I knew something about it. Apparently Santiago thinks it was us and thinks a war might be coming. None of us wants no war.”
“Like I said, I don’t know anything about that. This is left over from my last shipment. You want it or not?”
Paul took a sip from a beer bottle and sat it back down.
“Do I look fucking stupid to you?” He said as he pulled a gun and pointed it at Henry. “You trying to set me up in whatever little fucked up game you’re playing? I should paint the walls with your fucking brains right now.”
“You should put the gun away, Paul.”
“Or what?”
Henry raised his hand slightly.
“Or…remember that time Beltran pistol-whipped you like a little bitch?”
“What?” Paul said as the gun trembled in his hand.
Henry twisted his hand slightly to the right.
“He fucked you up good. That’s why your nose is all fucked up. And you told everyone you got jumped by a gang of thugs. Nope, it was just Beltran. All because you came up five-hundred dollars short. I bet you never did that again.”
“Fuck you, man!”
Henry pushed his hand forward slightly as tears ran down Paul’s face just before he dropped the gun. Everyone in the room sat watching. Jimmy stood by with his gun out in case anyone tried anything.
“What are you doing to me?” Paul asked. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’re goddamn right I am. I tried to do this the easy way, but you weren’t having it. So here we are. You want to know what happened to Spider?”
“No! No, it’s ok. I’ll take the top. Fuck! That hurts! What are you doing?”
Henry clenched his fist and rotated it slightly as bloody tears oozed from Paul’s eyes. Paul dropped to his knees and put his hands up.
“Oh god! What is happening?!”
“Oh nothing,” Henry said. “Just doing a bit of reorganization.” Thrusting his fist forward, Paul let out a yelp as he fell to the side. This time, his eyeballs actually exploded in their sockets, and a fountain of crimson shot from both of his ears as the back of his head burst open. Chunks of skull and brain splattered onto the man behind him as he collapsed. Milky eyeball fluid got all over one of the girls nearby, who then screamed and ran out of the room.
Looking around, he surveyed the rest of Paul’s crew, standing by horrified.
“Ok, boys,” Henry said. “I’m taking over operations of this club and all of Paul’s operations in general. All of you now work for me!” He looked around at all the men and women whose mouths were hanging open. “Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Silence.
“I didn’t think so. Now, one of you cut off this guy’s head for me.”
Chapter 8
“Find this fucker and skin him alive!” Edward Beltran said as he slammed his fist onto his desk. “Then! Then when you peel the skin from his body like a human fucking banana…while he’s still alive mind you, cut off his fucking head. I’m going to put his head on a spike outside of that fucking nightclub!” He looked around the room at his men staring at each other cluelessly.
“Well? You idiots going to say anything?”
“Um, I don’t think we can just put a severed head outside a nightclub like that, boss.” One of his men said. Beltran looked at him as if the man were a pile of dog shit.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Kellen sir. Kellen List. I work for you.”
“Right. Well, Kellen List. Why don’t you list the ways you can cut this guy’s fucking balls off? Seriously? Why am I here even explaining this to you assholes?”
Word of Henry J. Thomas’ hostile takeover of one of his own clubs as well as a few territories reached Beltran several days after Thomas had either killed several of his men or somehow recruited them, which was unheard of. His men were not only paid well by him but he made sure everyone was kept scared shitless. A few years before, one guy had decided it would be cool if he skimmed cash off the top of their weekly deals. It was millions of dollars from drug and gun sales. Beltran could see why the guy didn�
��t think anyone would miss it. Truth was, Beltran didn’t miss it. Not just one guy.
That was the problem, you let one guy skim like that, it’s just a matter of time before another is doing it, then another. Next thing you know your entire crew is robbing you blind. So he nipped it in the bud the only way he knew how. The guy’s name was Anthony Werley. He’d worked for Beltran for a few months, so should have known better. Handling that kind of cash day in and day out, it was easy to see how one would get tempted to start pocketing a few bucks. Beltran planned to make sure it didn’t happen again. He would sometimes take his crews out onto his yacht in the Gulf of Mexico for parties. This time, he brought Anthony and several others in his crew, along with a whole group of hookers and strippers.
Hours into the cruise, Anthony was drunk and coked out of his head. Beltran sent one of his men into the cabin to go and get him. When they found him, Anthony had his nose buried into a stripper’s asshole while he snorted a line of coke right out of her butt crack and along the small of her back. She sat there giggling the whole time. They brought him topside with an additional surprise.
“Anthony,” Beltran had said. “I thought you should know why we brought you here today. Today is a special event.”
Anthony looked around at the rest of the crew. Some were smiling, others looked frightened.
“See, Anthony? Today we brought some special guests.” As Beltran spoke, two men appeared from one of the cabins with Anthony’s elderly mother and father bound and gagged. His dad was seventy-three years old and his mom sixty-eight. They had been in mostly good health but they weren’t looking so hot standing before Anthony right then and there.
“Mom? Dad? What the fuck?” he screamed as he lunged for them but several of Beltran’s men grabbed him. One threw him to the ground and punched him so hard in the face, he almost lost consciousness. They pulled him to his feet as Beltran continued speaking.
“I’m well aware of your little side business of, well, stealing from me. There’s a lot of things I can tolerate and even more things I can forgive. Being robbed by my own fucking men that I trust? No. That’s not one of them, I’m afraid.”
