by JL Bryan
“'Oh, hi, Pedro?' That's it?”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? What do I want? The same thing as your mother wants. I want you to tell us where the hell you've been all this time, and get rid of that filthy gringo you brought back with you. He scares your mother, do you know that?”
“Everything scares my mother.” Ashleigh shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. “You've changed. There's something different about you. Your eyes. Did you get contacts?”
“So what?” Ashleigh said. “Get out of my way, Pedro. I'm busy.”
“Too busy for me. But not too busy for him.” He pointed his chin at her apartment. “What good is he? Your mother says he's got no job, nada.”
“I like him. So, go away.” Ashleigh tried to pass around him, but Pedro seized her arm and squeezed it hard enough to bruise the bone, and she cried out in pain.
“I love you, Esmeralda,” he said, his eyes burning into her. Clenching both her arms now, Pedro sank to his knees in front of her. “I want to marry you. Say you'll marry me, right now.”
“Let me go, jerk!” Ashleigh said.
“Not until you say yes. I know it's the right thing. I can feel it. You and me, together—”
“Take your hands off her.” Tommy must have been watching through the window, because he came out of the apartment and walked quickly toward Pedro.
“You!” Pedro snarled. He stood up, let go of Ashleigh and raised his fists. “You get out of here. Esmeralda is mine.”
“Not anymore,” Tommy said.
Pedro charged. Tommy dodged his first punch, then hit him in the face. Pedro ducked low and jabbed two quick punches into Tommy's stomach. Tommy staggered back, clutching his guts, and Pedro decked him in the face.
“Had enough?” Pedro asked.
Tommy shoved Pedro back into his car, and Pedro's head thumped on the Acura's windshield. Pedro swung at Tommy, but Tommy turned his head and let it glance off his cheek. Then he seized Pedro's throat in one hand, pressing his head back on the windshield.
Ashleigh watched Pedro's eyes swell wide with fear.
“You're never going to bother her again,” Tommy snarled. “Understand?”
“Fuck...you...” Pedro managed to say, though he was trembling badly.
Tommy flung him to the concrete and dealt a series of sharp kicks to Pedro's abdomen and head. Pedro curled up, bleeding from his mouth and nose.
“Are we clear now?” Tommy asked. Pedro just shivered on the ground, staring up at him.
Ashleigh leaned over Pedro. “Sorry, guy. I just don't like you. You're too annoying. And short.” Then she turned her back on him and kissed Tommy. “Thanks for protecting me. I have to catch the bus.”
As she walked away, she heard Pedro mutter the word “bitch” under his breath. Tommy kicked him again.
Ashleigh rode one of the city buses, checking her face a few times in a compact mirror. She wanted to look her best. Fortunately, Esmeralda was decently cute, so that gave her something to work with.
Ashleigh was getting worried about the lack of news from Charleston. They'd set up the riot successfully, and the last time she'd seen Jenny Mittens, the crowd was closing in all around her. Ashleigh had been in a hurry to get out of town, because Jenny had killed Ashleigh on her last rampage.
According to the news, there had been a riot, but not any fatalities. There was no talk, even on the Internet, about tons of people dying or suffering horrific disease. Either the government had decided to cover this one up, too—which would be extremely difficult, with all those thousands of witnesses—or, even more ridiculous, maybe Jenny just hadn't fought back, and had allowed the mob to beat her death. But again, there weren't any reported deaths.
Ashleigh's plan must have had a flaw somewhere, but she couldn't tell where it was. She'd set up the same conditions that made Jenny flip out in Fallen Oak, but it looked like she hadn't gotten the same results. What had changed? Had Jenny herself changed, so that she wouldn't even defend herself?
As she stepped off the bus, Ashleigh try to clear those worries from her mind. She had work to do.
Her destination was obvious—a large space in a strip mall, the windows papered with posters that read “Brazer for Senate.” Eddie Brazer was a current U.S. Representative, looking to take an open Senate seat in the upcoming election. The President only had a 35% approval rating nationally, and 19% in California. Brazer was part of the opposition party expected to gain more seats in the House and take over the Senate. He looked like a good horse to ride.
The inside of the office buzzed like a beehive. People sat at long tables, folding and stuffing mailers or talking on telephone headsets. Ashleigh smiled at everyone she saw, but made a direct path to the office at the back.
A man in his thirties sat behind the desk, typing as he looked among three computer monitors. She knew his name was Freddy Sanchez, and he managed this campaign office for the Congressman.
“Hi there,” Ashleigh said, knocking on the open door as she entered. He looked up at her and squinted his eyes.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“I'm Esmeralda,” Ashleigh said. “I'm here to volunteer.”
“Donna handles volunteers.” He pointed over her shoulder to the crowded main room.
“Oh, I'm so lost.” Ashleigh moved closer, bumping her hip against the side of the desk, and she lay her hand on top of his. Love poured out from her into him, and his pupils dilated and a drunken grin spread over his face. “Can't you help me at all?”
“I suppose I could do something.” His eyes flicked down her body to her short skirt. “What kind of volunteer work would you like to do?”
“Just anything to help Congressman Brazer.” Ashleigh squeezed the man's hand. “He's so involved in issues that I'm passionate about. Like the environment, and inner-city education...Homeland Security, that's important, too...”
“You've studied his record a little.” Sanchez smiled.
“I've studied it a lot,” Ashleigh told him. “I think he'd be such a good senator. We need people like him to take care of the country. Don't you think?”
“Of course.” Sanchez took her hand. “We'd be happy to have you. Let me just get some information for our database.”
Ashleigh sat across from him and leaned back in the chair, letting him get a good look at Esmeralda's thighs.
“Name?” he asked.
“Esmeralda Medina Rios.”
“Phone number?”
“You want my phone number?” Ashleigh giggled.
“It's strictly professional,” he said, but he was starting to blush.
“Well, we'll try to keep it that way.” Ashleigh winked.
He took her phone number and address. She held his arm as he led her out to one of the long tables, where people separated by flimsy dividers talked on telephone headsets and tapped at computers. A few heads turned and eyebrows raised at the young woman clinging to the office manager.
“Just have a seat at this station.” He kept his hand on Ashleigh's shoulder as she took the cheap, hard office chair. With his other hand, he opened an application on the computer. “The system calls potential donors for you. All you have to do is follow the script.”
“I can do that.”
“Here's your headset. I can put that on for you,” he said. Ashleigh smiled as he slid the headset into place and adjusted the microphone in front of her mouth. She pressed his hand against her cheek.
“Will I ever have a chance to actually meet him?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Sure. The congressman stops by occasionally for meet-and-greets with the volunteers.”
“I just want to tell him how important he is to people in my community.”
“And I'm sure he'd like to hear that.” He beamed down at Ashleigh. “I'll make sure to introduce you.”
“Thanks,” Ashleigh said, and winked. He watched her as the autodialer system connected her to a past donor. Ashleigh read f
rom the screen: “Hi, Mr. Wilson? I'm calling on behalf of Brazer for Senate. Representative Brazer appreciates your past generosity, and hopes you will support his bid to bring his vision for a brighter, greener America to the U.S. Senate...”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At breakfast, Alexander gave Jenny a blank postcard featuring the Space Needle.
“To send your father,” he explained. “You said you didn't want to worry him.”
“What do I tell him?” Jenny was feeling sickly from the wine and liquor, and embarrassed at how she'd thrown herself at him during the party. She hoped he didn't bring it up.
“Anything,” Alexander said. “Tell him the open road beckoned. Tell him you're alive and fine. Just don't tell him where you really are. It'll be postmarked Seattle when he gets it.”
Jenny took the pen he offered and wrote a quick note to her dad, assuring him he was fine. Alexander passed it off to Manuel, who carried it out of sight.
Jenny poked at her eggs, then sipped coffee. “I don't feel like eating. My stomach's all, you know.”
“I bet. You were wild last night. Do you always hit it that hard?”
“Only when I'm in Mexico, on the run from the law. What are we doing today?”
“Visiting the zombie farm.”
“Sounds creepy,” Jenny said.
They left the breakfast for the staff to clean up. In the front drive, Manuel had parked a pick-up truck with a tarp covering the payload. As they approached it, Jenny heard snarling and growling from under the tarp.
“What's under there?” she asked Alexander as he opened the passenger door for her.
“Just walking the dogs. Need a boost?”
“I drive a truck bigger than this back home.” Jenny climbed up into the passenger seat and opened the driver-side door for him. “Need a hand up?”
“Very funny.” Alexander took his seat and started the truck. “You might want to hold on to something.”
“I'll be fine.”
Alexander punched the accelerator, and they roared out through the front gate. Jenny grabbed the door handle as he turned sharply onto the winding dirt road through the heavy growth, then picked up more speed. Soon they were doing more than ninety miles an hour over steep, uneven, muddy roads.
“Aren't there are any, you know, speed limits out here?” she asked.
“Speed limits, yes. People to enforce them, no.”
The roads grew steeper as they climbed into the foothills of the Sierra Madre. Alexander parked the truck at a small ranch, where he spoke with the owner in Spanish. The man provided them with two horses, saddled and bridled and ready to ride.
Jenny gaped at the huge animals. “I've never ridden a horse,” she whispered to Alexander.
“It's easy,” he said. “Just hold the reins and don't fall off. Everything else is easy.”
Jenny's horse was white with large brown spots, and it regarded her with huge black eyes. She felt nervous. She checked to make sure her sleeves were pulled down to her gloves, her ankles covered by her socks and jeans. She didn't want to poison the poor creature with her touch.
The horse stepped closer to Jenny, trying to sniff at her hair. She backed away and patted his head.
Jenny looked at Alexander and the ranch owner, a wrinkled man who must have been in his sixties.
“Okay...so how do I get on?” she asked.
“Just put one foot on the stirrup and swing your leg over.” Alexander indicated a leather loop at the height of Jenny's chest. She looked at it doubtfully.
“I think I left my go-go-Gadget legs at home,” she said. “How do I get up there?”
“When you're comfortable enough, you'll jump.” Alexander took her around the waist and picked her up. He guided her foot into the stirrup, then seated her in the saddle. “How's that?”
Jenny petted the horse while she looked around. It was strange to be so high off the ground, relying on the huge mammal beneath her not to freak out and throw her off.
“Too scary for you?” he asked.
“Oh, whatever. I can handle this.”
Alexander placed the reins in her hand, and Jenny held them loosely while she watched Alexander walk back to the truck. The snarls from under the tarp grew louder, and something punched upward against it, but Jenny still couldn't see what was back there. Then Alexander lowered the tailgate.
Jenny held her breath and tightened her grip on the reins. She was expected some huge dogs to come rushing out of the darkness under the tarp, but nothing emerged. The growls grew louder, though.
Alexander left the tailgate open and jumped into the saddle of his huge black stallion. He pressed his knees into the horse's sides.
“Yah!” he said, and the horse began to trot away, towards the jungle at the edge of the ranch.
“Yah?” Jenny asked, and her horse took off after Alexander. Jenny clung tight as it bounced her up and down. Her hair blew out behind her.
A wall of tropical vegetation stood just behind the rail fence at the edge of the ranch, as if the little valley had been slashed and burned from a dense rainforest. Alexander was riding towards a trail that led up into the rainforest, towards the next mountain.
Alexander whistled. Jenny looked back to see a pair of huge beasts leap out from underneath the tarp on the truck. They weren't dogs at all, but huge cats with golden coats and dark spots. They thudded as they hit the ground—they must have weighed at least two hundred pounds each.
Jenny watched the animals race to the fence and leap over it, then disappear into the jungle.
“Jaguars?” Jenny asked. “You trained jaguars?”
“Don't be silly. Nobody can train a cat.”
Alexander led the way into the jungle, where the dense canopy turned the daylight green. Insects, birds, and monkeys chattered overhead. Jenny watched a few giant mosquitoes land on her wrist, then immediately crumple up and die from her Jenny pox.
In the rainforest around them, she caught an occasional quick glimpse of the great cats darting through the foliage.
“So, if they're not trained...” Jenny said.
“Look closer.” One of the jaguars leaped onto a thick tree limb overhanging the steep trail. It walked until it was directly above Jenny, then sat and licked one paw.
Jenny looked closer. The jaguar had a number of deep gashes in its skin, revealing stripes of gray muscle and bone, but none of these were bleeding. Its coat was matted and dirty.
“They're dead,” she said. “You made zombie jaguars.”
“Great security against man or beast,” he said. “Took a while for the horses to get used to the smell.”
“Do they have names?”
Alexander smiled. “I call them Pekku and Pukuh. They're named after the god of thunder and the god of death.”
“Mayan gods?”
“That's right.”
“You're really adapting to the locals here.”
“It's not so hard,” Alexander said. “We've been Mayan before.”
“You and me?”
“There were great stone cities in those days,” he said. “You can still find the ruins of them, here and there.”
“What happened to their civilization?”
“The same that happens to all of them,” Alexander said. “Men can't live in peace together. We are designed to compete, and fight, and kill.”
“And what about women?” Jenny asked, with half a smile.
“Women are twice as dangerous.”
Jenny snickered, thinking of Ashleigh. Behind them, the jaguar who'd posed for her leaped off the limb and disappeared into the jungle.
The trail grew steep, rough and choked with lush growth. The jaguars stayed well ahead of them on the trail, where their presence flushed out brightly colored, squawking birds that retreated high into the canopy.
“Do you control everything they do?” Jenny asked.
“I can set them to one repetitive, simple task,” Alexander said. “Like walking. Anything else require
s some extra focus.”
“That's amazing,” she said. “Your power's so much better than mine.”
“I've seen you wipe out an entire army in a day. I have nothing compared to what you have, Jenny.”
“It's no good for anything but hurting and killing people,” Jenny said. “There's nothing positive I can do.”
“Sometimes destroying the right people is a positive thing,” he said. “Everything depends on the situation.”
“What was I like, in my Mayan life?”
“Beautiful. Powerful. Intriguing. Frightening. Godlike. Just like you are now.”
“I'm not any of those things. Well, maybe frightening.”
“You were believed to be divine,” Alexander said. “Which you are, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
“We keep coming back, lifetime after lifetime. We wield power over everyone else. We are, in our way, immortal. We aren't entirely wrong to consider ourselves godlike.”
“I don't know. I would think of a God, or gods, as being sort of wise, and kind of above everything, not stuck in the world and trying to figure things out and being clueless most of the time.”
“I've never encountered such a being,” Alexander said. “There is only us. We are the natural rulers of the humans, because we are so much stronger. They are the sheep. We are the shepherds and the wolves.”
“And which are you?” Jenny asked. “Shepherd or wolf?”
He laughed. “I'm a builder. I despise the love-charmer because she is only a taker.”
“You mean Ashleigh?”
“She's a vulture who preys on others and creates nothing herself. A scavenger with no vision.”
“And what do you build?”
“It depends on the age. I had constructed for my tomb in Egypt a step pyramid, which was quite influential on later kings. I have built canals, roads, temples, arenas, harbors, depending on the age. I always leave a mark behind.”
“And what mark are you making in this lifetime?”
“When you see what lies ahead, you'll see what we can accomplish.”
“With cocaine?”
“That will only be the beginning of our revenue. Start-up capital. In time, we will build whatever we like. And your vision will be as important as mine.”
