by Reinke, Sara
Not just any blood. That painful knot in her stomach tightened all the more and she brushed her fingertips against a stain on the seat; about the circumference of a half dollar, it was still damp. It’s Elías’s.
Nearby, she saw another spot of blood, then another and another, all of them soaked into upholstery, as if Elías had been lying across the backseat, covered by the jacket as he’d bled from multiple wounds. Oh, God, he’s hurt!
Her heart raced in bright, sudden panic, and she looked back at the nightclub. She could open her mind, try to sense Elías telepathically, but if she did, she’d also be opening herself to Pepe and any other Nahual who happened to be within range. She couldn’t take that risk.
So what do I do? she thought, desperate and afraid. Elías was bleeding; he was in trouble and he was hurt. She didn’t know how many other members of Los Pandilleros might be inside besides Pepe; she didn’t see his motorcycle, or anyone else’s, anywhere close by.
And I don’t have my cell phone, she thought. I can’t call Valien or Téo for help.
Not that she would have anyway. There would have been all she’d need—the two of them to come riding to her rescue, then ripping her a new ass for not listening to them in the first place. But if she had a phone, she might have at least been able to send a text message to Jackson. He’d always seemed sympathetic enough toward her, and even though the Nahual were stronger than he was as a human, he was skilled enough in the art of aikido to quite possibly more than compensate.
“Mierda,” she muttered. It was getting hot inside the Charger, and she knew she couldn’t stay in there much longer. She had to do something, had to move. Then, all at once, it occurred to her.
The gun rack’s in the trunk of my car, Elías had told her the night before at his condo. My shotgun’s there too.
Pilar sank back into the driver’s seat and glanced down toward the floorboard on her left. She found the trunk latch midway down, a small lever she hooked with her fingertips, then pulled. She heard a soft pop from the back of the car and glanced in the rearview mirror to see the trunk bob obligingly up an inch or so within her view.
Keeping a wary eye on the backdoor to Melaza, she eased the car door open again and slipped out. Crouching low, using the side of the Charger for cover, she crept around to the back and raised the trunk a bit higher to look inside. Elías’s shotgun had been secured to the backside of the rear seat with a slim metal rack. She didn’t know how it unlocked, and didn’t have time to figure it out. She grabbed it and gave a hard yank, ripping it loose from its mountings as easily as she’d torn apart the handcuffs earlier.
In a small nylon bag nearby, she found a box of cartridges. Squatting down behind the car, she balanced the shotgun in her lap and loaded it. She wasn’t completely unfamiliar with guns, but this one was by far a larger gauge and more intricately designed than anything she’d ever handled under her father’s supervision. Once she’d plugged in a full ten-cartridge load, she gave the pump action a pull to chamber a round at the ready. Then, peering around the side of the Charger to make sure the parking lot was still empty, she quietly closed the trunk and tiptoed toward the building, carrying the gun in her hand.
As she stood just outside the threshold, she could hear music inside, loud enough to vibrate the metal door. Turning the handle slowly, she found it unlocked and pulled the door open just enough to squeeze through. Catching it against her hand behind her, she let it shut softly behind her, then stood in a service hallway, blinking owlishly, waiting for her eyes to adjust from the relative glare outside to the heavy shadows and dim lights within.
Melaza may not have been open for business yet, but someone obviously hadn’t told the deejay. The music, a manically paced Latin rap song, pounded loudly from the dance floor. Ahead of her, she could see the flash of red and yellow strobe lights, the neon glow of stage lights. She didn’t see or hear any people, however, from her limited vantage, and eased her way forward, keeping her brows narrowed, her eyes sharp.
By the time she reached the end of the hall, she could see the dance floor in full, the brightly lit stage directly ahead of her. Everything was empty—the space behind the bar, along the bar stools, every table, booth or couch within view. The entire bar was vacant—except for the stage.
“Elías!”
Pilar darted forward, knocking over chairs and pushing past tables as she raced across the room.
He sat slumped in a chair in the middle of the narrow catwalk. His hands had been lashed together behind him to the brass pole. His chest was bare, his skin smeared with blood, his chin tucked down toward his sternum, his hair drooping into his face.
“Elías!” Pilar scrambled up onto the stage. Dropping the shotgun beside her, she fell to her knees, clasping his face between her hands. “Elías, can you hear me? Oh…oh my God!”
His skin was ashen, clammy and cool. She could see bite wounds on either side of his throat, ragged tears where someone had fed from him. There were more savage marks on the insides of his upper arms, the junctures of his elbows—anyplace where an artery could be readily accessed—and puncture wounds in his chest where the apex of his heart had been penetrated. He moaned softly as she tried to lift his head, and his eyelids fluttered open. He was semilucid and didn’t recognize her at first; he jerked in the chair with a frightened, breathless cry, his eyes flying wide, his heart hammering with sudden panic.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right now, Elías. It’s me. It’s just me.”
His head drooped, his consciousness waning, and he struggled to focus his bleary gaze on her face. “Pilar?” he croaked.
She nodded, stroking his hair back, tears spilling down her cheeks. “It’s me,” she said again. “It’s all right now. Oh, God, Elías, I’m going to get you out of here. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”
He’d been tied with his own belt, the strap of leather cinched so tightly around his wrists it left bright red wheals in his skin as she ripped it away. She found more bite marks on his inner forearms, his skin torn and bruised, the gruesome wounds crusted over with blood that had yet to fully dry.
“Pilar,” Elías groaned again. He raised one of his hands, brushing his fingers clumsily against the face, her mouth. His brows lifted. “I’m sorry. Please, I…I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh,” Pilar soothed, catching his hand with her own, kissing his fingers. “Don’t try to talk. Let’s just get you out of here.”
“No,” Elías breathed as she put her arm around his shoulders to help him stand. “Pilar, please…”
“It’s all right,” she said again as she drew him, stumbling, to his feet.
“You…have to go,” he pleaded, leaning heavily against her, weak and hurt, barely able to stand. “You have to get out of here.”
Staggering under his weight, Pilar struggled to balance him upright. “Not without you.”
He slipped from her grasp and crashed to his knees. With a cry, Pilar reached for him, catching beneath the arms from behind before he pitched off the side of the stage. He lifted his head weakly, looking back over his shoulder at her.
“Please,” he begged, closing his eyes, his brows furrowing as if he felt a spasm of pain. He shuddered in her embrace. “Madre…de Dios…get away from me, Pilar…oh, God, please!”
His voice ripped up into an anguished cry at this last plea, and he rammed his elbow back directly at her face. She didn’t have time to react or recoil; he connected hard with her cheek, knocking her back, sending her sprawling from the catwalk and onto the floor. She plowed past a trio of stageside chairs as she fell, toppling them with her. For a long, stunned moment, she lay on her belly on the floor, the strobe lights flashing overhead. Then she heard a sound—a distinctive chi-chink from behind her, the shotgun’s pump action engaged, and she looked back, eyes wide in bewildered horror.
“He’s inside of me,” Elías cried to her hoarsely, the gun drawn to his shoulder, his head cocked as he leveled his sights down the
barrel. “He…he’s making me do this. I can’t stop. God, Pilar, please, run—the son of a bitch is in my fucking head!”
She saw his finger fold into the trigger, and with a yelp, scrabbled to her feet. The shotgun blast was thunderous, even over the din of the music, and she heard the shot plow into the floor millimeters behind her, throwing up splinters of concrete and chunks of burning carpet just as she bolted out of the way.
“Pilar,” Elías cried again, agonized. His second shot made a table just past her shoulder explode. With a scream, she cowered, hands thrown over her head. Again, she heard the ratcheting of the gun and again, he pleaded helplessly. “Get out of here. Oh God, please!”
Another shot blew a crater in the floor immediately in front of her, sending her backpedaling in frantic recoil. The next one grazed her; it felt like her lower leg had been splashed with molten lead, and with a cry, she fell down, clutching at her calf, feeling hot, wet indentations where the pellets had punched through her skin.
“No!” Elías screamed. “No, God, please stop! Please don’t make me hurt her!”
Crawling on her belly, digging with her elbows and using her uninjured leg to push herself along, Pilar gritted her teeth and scuttled forward. Pepe’s doing this, she thought. He’s using his telepathy to control Elías—but from where?
The steps leading up to the Salón Tipeja, were directly in front of her. By hugging the ground, staying near the dark carpeting and using the tables for cover, she was able to keep out of Elías’s aim.
He has to be somewhere close by to be controlling Elías this tightly, she thought, gritting her teeth against the pain in her leg and scrambling up the steps toward the lounge. Watching the whole thing, having a good time.
She reached the top of the steps and there he was—the best seat in the house as always, surrounded by four of his Los Pandilleros fellows. Pepe reclined on one of his overstuffed leather sofas, his legs languidly crossed, his arms outstretched and a nine-millimeter pistol—undoubtedly Elías’s—in his hand.
“Hola, Pilar,” he said, pointing the gun directly at her. Although his mouth was hooked in a friendly sort of smile, his eyes were anything but. They’d rolled over to black from el cambio, and his brows were furrowed deeply, casting his entire face in deep, menacing shadows. “Or should I call you Destiny? Almost didn’t recognize you without the wig…or with your clothes on.”
With a furious cry, she sprang to her feet and leaped at him. Her fangs ripped down from her gums, and the interior of the bar suddenly became awash with bright glow as her pupils flew wide. He fired the gun, and she felt the whip of wind as the hot slug flew past her, clipping past her shoulder.
She hit Pepe with the force of a Freightliner going full speed, plowing the entire couch backward, knocking it over. The pistol tumbled from his hand, skittering across the carpet. Landing atop him, straddling his chest, she immediately sat up, fists balled, and struck at him, pummeling his face, hitting him as hard as she could, ramming her knuckles into his eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth again and again.
“Bastard!” she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. “You fucking bastard, I’ll kill you! Let him go! Let Elías go!”
The other Los Pandilleros members came to their leader’s defense. One of them grabbed her by the hair and wrenched brutally, hauling her back. It felt like he tore hair from her scalp by the fistful as he craned her head abruptly back on her neck. He threw her sideways, sending her first tumbling, then crashing into the nearest wall. As she crawled onto her hands and knees, her head reeling, she heard Elías cry out from the stage, “Pilar—look out!”
The Los Pandilleros member attacked her again, charging forward. Stumbling to her feet, she danced back as he approached, pivoting as he tried to grab her again. Hooking his outstretched arm with her own, she sidestepped, letting him pirouette past her in wide-eyed surprise. She then wrestled his arm back sharply, unexpectedly, and flipped him ass over elbows, sending him crashing to the floor, whoofing for breath.
“Bastard,” she hissed, brows furrowed, as she dropped down beside him, driving the point of her elbow with all her might into the tip of his sternum. He was vulnerable here, the bone thin and brittle, and at the impact, it crushed, splintering ribs along with it. Arching his back, he screamed, his feet kicking helplessly, his voice choked and strained.
Another of Pepe’s gang came upon her from behind, grabbing her hair and forcing her to dance on her tiptoes as he yanked her roughly to her feet. “You fucking bitch,” he seethed in her ear, and she heard a soft snict! as he snapped open a long, glinting switch blade within a centimeter of her face.
Pilar spun around to face him, ripping hair loose in his grasp. As she moved, she caught his wrist between her hands, cranking it in a sharp, swift arc. His wrist and elbow hyperextended, his entire arm flexing against the immediate, excruciating strain, and his fingers splayed wide, the knife falling to the floor. Pilar rammed her knee squarely into his vulnerably exposed crotch, dropping him like a mortar.
Another one came at her; with a duck of her head and a shrug of her shoulder, she sent him flying, crashing first into a mirror on the wall, then to the floor. Her body infused with adrenaline and endowed by the bloodlust, she barely felt it when the fourth man landed a furious punch to her cheek, snapping her head sideways and knocking her to the ground. She tasted blood in her mouth as she lifted her head. He stood in front of her, sneering; brows furrowed, lip pulled back as she uttered a howl, she drove her heel into the side of his knee, ripping ligaments and tendons loose and crippling him. With a shriek, he went down hard, and Pilar scissored her legs out, punting him in the balls with one foot—taking his voice up shrill, agonized octaves—and catching him in the face with the other, mashing his lips back into his teeth.
Reaching down, she snatched up the knife and limped to her feet, squaring off against Pepe.
“You fucking bitch,” he seethed at Pilar, his expression caught between murderous fury and disbelief. Eying the knife as she adjusted her grip on the handle, he managed a bark of laughter. “I should have killed you right alongside your pendejo father.”
Pilar spat blood at him. “Yeah. You should have.”
Brows narrowed, eyes locked with hers, Pepe held out his hands. “Come on, then,” he challenged. “What are you waiting for, puta? Here I am. Come and get me.”
Pilar spat again, a thin trickle of blood running down her chin. “My pleasure,” she snapped, lunging forward. He tried to step out of her path, but she’d expected the move and countered with a sharp swing of the blade. She felt the keen edge of the razor-sharpened steel slice through his shirt, tugging at the fabric, nicking his skin just beneath. With an outraged howl, Pepe grabbed her by the wrist and rammed his free arm elbow-first into her face. Her nose splintered on impact and she fell backward to the floor, landing hard, stunned momentarily senseless. He’d moved so fast, she hadn’t seen the blow coming; had hit her so hard, it took a few seconds for the pain to settle fully in. She watched pinpoints of light sparkle in her dazed line of sight and felt the urge to retch as blood suddenly pooled in her throat, flooding down from her crushed nasal passages.
“Pilar!” Elías cried.
“Get her up,” Pepe said to his men as one by one, they staggered, groaning and clumsy, to their feet. Brushing off his arm as if striking her had soiled him, he snapped, “Get that fucking bitch on her feet!”
Pilar grimaced as one of them grabbed her hair again, forcing her to stand up. “Please,” she rasped.
“What?” Pepe stormed toward her, clamping his hand against her throat, shoving her back into the ruined mirror behind her, splintering the glass all the more. His eyes flew wide as he leaned close to her, peppering her face with spittle. “You fucking cunt—you killed Miguel and Tomás. You were gunning for me next, weren’t you, you crazy goddamn bitch? You take on mis hombres, then come at me like a goddamn wildcat and now you’re going to beg for mercy? Fuck that!”
“Not for me,” Pilar whi
spered, cutting her eyes toward the stage, where Elías still stood, watching in helpless horror. “For him.”
Pepe followed her gaze, then glanced back at her again, his brow arched.
“Please, Pepe,” she said. “Let him go. You don’t need him anymore.”
“Pilar, no!” Elías cried. “No, goddamn it, don’t—”
His words cut short as Pepe forced his mouth shut, his voice muffled through the tight seam of his lips.
“Need him?” Pepe said softly to Pilar. “No…you’re right. I don’t.” The tip of his tongue darted out, swiping his upper lip. “But I want him. His blood tastes good to me…almost as good as pussy. So I think that’s what he’ll be from now on. My bitch.”
“No!” Pilar squirmed in his grasp, pawing at his hand. “Listen to me. I’m the one you want. Me—I’m right here. I won’t fight you anymore. I swear.”
She had his full and undivided attention now. His eyes locked on hers. “I won’t fight you,” she promised again. “Just please…don’t hurt him anymore. Please.”
He studied her for a long moment, then uttered a sharp bark of disdainful laughter. “I don’t believe it. You really are in love with that stupid huelebicho.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the shadow-draped corner of the lounge. For the first time, as she followed his line of sight, Pilar realized someone was there, a small, slight figure who stepped forward, as if at unspoken beckon.
“I told you,” said a familiar voice—a woman’s voice—as the figure stepped into the light. To her shock and dismay, Pilar recognized her.
“Chita?” She gasped. Oh, God, it can’t be, she thought. No, no, please, not you. You’re my friend!
“How do you think I found out about you and this silly little game you’ve been playing?” Stepping back, Pepe released Pilar from his chokehold. She crumpled to her hands and knees before him, gasping for breath. “Did you really think I haven’t known who you are all this time?”
