I carefully stowed The Way behind the seat of the truck, and slid behind the steering wheel. “Okay, kid. Where do we start looking for him?”
Estéban, crammed into the middle seat, just looked straight ahead, his jaw tight. “Head down into town. He wouldn’t try to hide with family, so he’ll go to one of his usual places. We should try the warehouse first.”
“You got it.”
The ride down the mountain was bumpy and silent, and I could see Cosalá lit up like Christmas long before we drove into the empty nighttime streets. Even the tourists had vacated, though with the windows rolled down, I could hear the low bass beat of music throbbing from a few cantinas as we passed. The town wasn’t entirely asleep yet.
The warehouse was dark, and the parking lot was completely deserted. “No fight club tonight?”
Estéban shook his head as we slid out of the truck. “They won’t come back here again. They’ll find someplace else.”
“But you think your cousin will be here?” Sveta had her gun out already, I noted, though it was pointed safely at the ground.
“Probably not. But it is a place to start.”
The door where we’d broken and entered the night before was still unlocked, and we slipped in that way, the kid producing a flashlight out of the old pickup. Sveta took point and I brought up the rear, and we slowly made our way toward the open end of the warehouse. The packed aisles of grocery staples were still as tight and claustrophobic as before, but there was something about the echoing silence of the place that made it worse. I determinedly kept my gaze from drifting up, not thinking about how someone atop the tall towers of pallets could easily shove a stack over on us, ending all our worries in a second.
The fighting arena looked like one would expect after an illicit party. Beer bottles and food wrappers were strung everywhere, and broken glass crunched under our boots. With no ventilation in the enormous building, the smells of sweat and blood and…other things hung heavy in the air, almost solid enough to form their own shapes. The kid muttered under his breath at the stench, and Sveta cast him a withering glare. “Quiet!”
The three of us stood in the open, an easy target if someone were so inclined, straining our ears for something, anything, that might say there was another living creature in the building. After long moments, I was willing to concede that we were alone. Even the rats seemed to have vacated, probably scared off by the sulfuric demon stench that lingered.
Still, rats weren’t the only vermin that could linger in such a place. “Keep the light still, kid, I wanna check something.”
My rune-etched mirror was always on my keychain, and it buzzed softly against my fingers as I fished it out and angled it to give me a view of the warehouse.
Watching my surroundings in the tiny glass, I turned a slow circle, paying close attention to the dark areas just outside the range of the flashlight beam. What I was looking for would be hard to see in the shadows, but that’s where they liked to hide. Sure enough, I caught a flicker of movement off to our left, near the stacks of pallets we’d just cleared. I waited a few moments to see if it happened again, then turned my head to double check that what I was seeing was only in the mirror. “When I say, Estéban, point the light at this pallet of rice over here.”
“Okay.”
I tilted the mirror so that I had a clear view of the pallet’s corner, then said, “Now.”
The kid swung the light around, illuminating absolutely nothing but a pallet of rice, at least in the real world. In the mirror, a dark mop-like shape froze for a second, then scurried deeper into the shadows on four insectile legs. “Knew it. Nasty little buggers gotta be crawling all over this place.
It was what I called a Scrap demon, a parasite of the demon world, and while I’d only seen the one, I was willing to bet there were more. They liked to attach to people, sucking their energy and will to live until the host just faded away. A place like Paulito’s fight club, where stronger demons were already hanging out, would be a prime breeding ground for the filthy little things.
Sveta frowned. “Should we try to kill it?”
“No, let it go. We don’t have time to clear a place this size, if the infestation is large. We mostly just need to make sure none of them latch onto us.” I flipped to another item on my handy-dandy keychain, a small canister of demon mace. “Step back, don’t breathe this in.”
The kid and Sveta both covered their mouths with their T-shirts, and I did a quick perimeter sweep around the cleared arena area, spraying a fine mist of cumin and cayenne in my wake. Demons hated the stuff (wasn’t real fond of it myself, truth be told), and hopefully it would keep the Scraps at bay until we could get out of there.
That accomplished, Esteban slowly panned the beam of light around us, even up into the rafters, then sighed. “Paulito’s not here.”
“It was a long shot at best.” Something in the beam of the flashlight caught my attention, and I gestured for him to give it over. “But since we’re here, I want to take a look at this magic circle he’s got going.”
The symbols had been slapped haphazardly on the cement floor with blue paint. They formed a full circle about ten feet across, but other than that, they made zero sense to me. I traced one with my finger, waiting for the tell-tale tingle that would mark lingering magic, and got nothing. Odd. “Do you recognize these at all, kid? Sveta?”
The Ukrainian woman came to crouch at my side, tilting her head as we surveyed the messy scribbles. “They are of no system of magic that I know. Neither pagan, nor Christian.”
“They’re not brujería.” The kid knelt down too, peering across the floor. “If I had not seen it work, I would say it is just gibberish. Nonsense.”
“I have to wonder if we really saw what we thought we saw.” There wasn’t a hint of magic in the place, I would bet my life on it. Sure, I wasn’t a wiz at it myself, but the souls in my skin hadn’t been wrong so far, and they’d pegged traces much fainter than I’d have ever sensed myself. Now, they were totally quiet, not stirring in the least. I actually found that comforting. If they weren’t upset, then we were probably safe here, at least for the moment.
“The circle worked. Both nights, I saw it hold that small demon. It pounded on the barrier and could not escape.”
“You can’t hold a demon, kid, unless it wants to be held. That thing could have just poofed back across the veil anytime it wanted.” Rocking back on my heels, I tried to see the bigger picture, tried to figure out what we were missing. “Did you actually see him cast the circle?”
“No. It was already in place when we arrived, both times.”
“A permanent structure would have to be bound to something more than these symbols, and there would be traces left. I find none.” It was good to hear that Sveta found no leftover magic either. Made me feel better about myself.
Taking the flashlight with me, I stood and started walking a slow spiral out from the painted circle. “He had to know we’d come back here. Maybe he dismantled whatever it was.” A few yards out, I caught something shiny in the edge of the light. “Here. What’s this?”
This proved to be a tangle of very thin wire, wadded up in a useless ball and kicked into the corner. There were shreds of cellophane tape stuck to it in places, and as I unwound bits of it, I could see that it was long enough to encircle the symbol-covered area. My fingertips tingled very faintly as I ran the wire over them. “Tricky, but it’s been done before…”
“What has?”
“Portable ward.” I showed them a length of the wire with tape attached. “Bless the wire, circle the area, tape it down. The symbols are for show, they did nothing.”
Sveta held the wire up to her face, sniffing it with a disdainful wrinkle of her nose. “There isn’t enough magic here to light a candle, let alone cage a demon.”
“Paulito was never that strong,” Estéban offered, looking uncomfortable when we both turned to look at him. “When we would practice our casting, his spells were always the weake
st.”
I dropped the tangle of warded wire and stood up, taking one last glance around the empty warehouse. “It wasn’t enough to cage one, just enough to put on a good show. Which means that the demon wanted to be held. And that worries me more than anything. Your cousin was way too buddy-buddy with that thing for my comfort.”
The kid’s face looked creepy and grim in the shadows cast by the flashlight. “We have to find him, Jesse. We have to stop him.”
“I know, kid.”
“Where do we look next, then?” Sveta was all business, all the time.
“What about the girlfriend? Where does she live?” If Paulito was like every other red-blooded male I’d ever met, he wouldn’t be far from his girl.
The kid shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know who she is. I’ve never seen her, until the other day. But he told me about this cantina in town that he likes. He was going to take me, later. Even if he’s not there, we could ask if anyone knows where Reina lives.”
“Better than nothing. Saddle up.”
The cantina itself gave a whole new meaning to hole in the wall. Like, the door itself was literally a hole in the stone wall of an old building, covered with only a decorative curtain that did nothing to stifle the horrible canned music playing through tinny speakers.
Inside was worse, if possible, with tiny round tables packed in so close that making a path to the bar was an event in and of itself. There was a ratty dart board in the corner, currently occupied by a couple that was…well, not playing darts. It was the kind of place whose main asset was obviously the fact that they were still open. Y’know, that place where the drunks go when their usual bar boots them out.
Heads came up and conversations stopped as we entered, and I was painfully aware that I’d left The Way in the truck this time. There were at least twelve men in there, several of them sporting wounds that placed them at Paulito’s fight club in their very recent history. Either that, or they were just guys who liked to get in fights. Neither possibility bode well for us. Sveta and I stood out like sore thumbs, to say the least, and none of the three of us were going to pass for tourists. The back of my T-shirt rippled a little as the tattoos adjusted themselves, not distressed, just aware.
“Oye. You lost, gringo?” The bartender leaned on this bar, giving me a challenging look.
“I’m with him.” I pointed at Estéban who was just stepping through the doorway behind me. The kid came up on my left, and I felt Sveta flank right, just behind my line of sight.
A scruffy man at the table immediately to my right laughed into his beer, an ugly, wet sound. “Apoco ya está mayorcito el bebito como para tomar?” I didn’t quite catch it all, but it was something about “Is the baby old enough to drink?”
Ignoring him, Estéban’s eyes swept the bar, and he shook his head with a frown. “He’s not here.”
“Oye, chico! Qué te crees demasiado bueno para hablar tu propio idioma o qué?” You too good to speak your own language or what? A round of ugly chuckles rippled around the room. Sveta pressed close to my side then, giving the pretense of being a timid female, but I felt the butt of her gun snug against the back of my thigh, and I knew that the drunk assholes here had no idea where the danger was about to come from.
Esteban focused on the bartender. “Dónde está Paulito Perez?”
The bartender snorted. “Oh now he speaks Spanish.” He swiped a filthy towel over the top of his bar nonchalantly. “He is not here, niño. We have not seen him tonight.”
“His girlfriend, then. Reina. Where does she live?”
“Reina?” The man pursed his lips thoughtfully, taking his sweet time. “Don’t know no Reina. Oigan, vatos. Alguien conoce una tal Reina?” A chorus of negatives answered him, but their sneers and chuckles said otherwise.
“They are useless,” Sveta snarled in my ear, but Scruffy at table two heard her.
“Hey, chica. I gotta use. You come on over here.” He leaned back and patted his lap with a leer.
Sveta’s eyes fell on him, and I knew we were screwed. She tilted her head slowly to one side, examining him thoroughly, and a slow smile spread over her face. To anybody else, it looked inviting, but up close I could see the cold blankness to her blue eyes. This was going south, real quick.
“Don’t do it…” She ignored me. Women do that.
With some extra sway to her hips, she sauntered in his direction, her gun hand carefully concealed behind her leg. If I didn’t know her and fear her so thoroughly, I would say she was an attractive young woman. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, ducking her head playfully, and I saw the guy’s eyes dilate, even in the murky light of the bar. Her new best friend had obviously had too much to drink to sense the imminent threat. “And how might I best make use of you?”
Scruffy smirked at his companions and patted his lap again. “Sit down, we can talk about it over a beer.”
Without looking, I reached to my left and found Estéban’s arm, firmly pulling him behind me as I pushed us both back toward the door. With all eyes on Sveta, no one else noticed.
The dark-haired woman straddled Scruffy’s knees, settling down on his lap and slipping her free hand around his neck. “Like this? I am a stranger to your country, I am not sure of the proper etiquette.”
“Your etiquette is just fine, chica. Very good.” One big, greasy hand came to rest on her ass, and that’s when it all went to hell.
Faster than anyone could see, she brought the gun up and had the barrel pressed up under his chin hard enough to tip his head back awkwardly, the smile never leaving her face. It took Scruffy a few moments to process his sudden change in fortunes, and then the color drained from his tan face, leaving him a strange, ashy color. “What? Is this not also very good?”
“Well that escalated quickly,” I muttered under my breath, trying to figure out how to best defuse the situation.
One of the guys near the dart board twitched toward something at his belt, and somehow, without even looking up, Sveta put her full attention on him. “Move again, and you will wear his brains. Entiendes?” When the man held up his hands and backed up a step, she smiled at her would-be suitor once more. “What is your name?”
He had to try twice to get the word out. “Enrique.”
“I am Svetlana, Enrique. I am glad that we are going to be friends.” She settled in his lap firmly, in a way that might have been enticing, y’know except for the giant freaking gun between them. “Now, we are looking for Paulito Perez, and his lovely lady friend, Reina. Are you able to help us?”
Scruffy shook his head slowly. “Like he said, Paulito hasn’t been in tonight. I don’t know where Reina lives, she doesn’t come in here.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and Sveta gave him a smile that I’m sure should have been encouraging, but instead looked like she was going to eat him with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
“And your friends? Do any of them know where she lives?”
Scruffy cast beseeching looks at his buddies, but one by one they shook their heads to the negative. If possible, he went paler.
“Wait, let me get this straight. Not one of you knows where she lives? This town isn’t that big. Someone has to have seen her coming and going.”
The bartender gave me an uncomfortable shrug, but his eyes never left Sveta. “She just turned up one day, you know? Don’t even know her last name or anything.”
Sveta sighed and stood up, but her gun stayed firmly against her new friend’s chin. “I am disappointed. I believe you all, but I am still disappointed.”
“What are you going to do?” Scruffy looked like he maybe didn’t want the answer to that question, but felt compelled to ask.
“I think I will go spend some time alone, and be sad.” She patted his cheek gently, then leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, leaving a smudge of light pink lip gloss there. “You were correct. You were very useful to me. Thank you, Enrique.”
Backing her way toward the door, she
kept the gun leveled at the room in general now. “Pardon us for interrupting your evening. You may continue.”
“Go, kid,” I muttered, making sure Estéban was out through the curtain before I followed. I held the fabric aside so that Sveta could step through without losing her aim. She backed up a few paces then jerked her chin in my direction, and I let the curtain drop. “Move, both of you.”
Okay, we didn’t exactly run back to the truck, but we moved with definite purpose. “Have you ever considered some therapy for your obvious social interaction difficulties?” Sveta just gave me a bland look, eyeing the night as the kid and I climbed into the truck, and only then did she follow us. “You realize that every guy in that place probably had a gun on him, right?”
“So? I am faster.”
I threw the truck into drive and got the hell out of Dodge before Scruffy Enrique and his buddies got over wetting themselves and came after us. “What were you going to do, shoot someone? You can’t just go around shooting people, Sveta. It’s not what we do.”
“It’s not what you do, you mean.” She gave me a cool glance across Estéban, who was doing his damnedest to shrink into a tiny, not-there ball between the two of us. “I do not always have the luxury of some of your moral choices. I have been in places like that before. Force is the only authority they recognize.”
“And the fact that the guy pissed you off and groped your ass had nothing to do with it?”
A slightly feral smirk crossed her face, visible in the dash lights. “They discounted me because I was female. It is their weakness.”
“It’s not a mistake they’ll make again. That trick only works once, and they’ll be looking for you now.” Getting around in town was going to be a helluva lot harder, from now on.
Our avenues of investigation were obviously exhausted for the night, so I pointed the truck up the mountain. “Think, kid. If you wanted to live somewhere here, and you didn’t want anyone to see you coming and going, where would you shack up?”
A Snake in the Grass Page 14
