Culebra waits a second before barking impatiently, “Anna. Wake up. I want to see you. Are you coming or not?”
I rouse myself with a mental thump to the head. “Yes. I’ll come. What’s this about?”
Lance comes out of the bathroom. He raises a questioning eyebrow at seeing me on the phone but takes my mug, pours coffee for both of us and hands mine back.
He’s naked and smells of soap and shampoo and my thoughts drift to wondering just how much time we have before he has to go and what might happen if I follow him back into the bedroom . . .
“Goddamn it, Anna.” Culebra’s ire is escalating. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Lance moves back into the bedroom. Not fucking, which is what I’d like to be doing. The bedroom door closes and the vapor lock in my brain releases. “I’m here, I’m here. Where do you want to meet?”
“I told you. Downtown Tijuana.”
“TJ? Why?”
A pause. Then a noisy, impatient exhalation. “I have my reasons. Can you come?”
My turn to pause, impulse to grill him strong. But Culebra never asks favors. This must be important. I relent.
“Where?”
“Thirty-four Avenido Revolucion . In an hour?”
Crap. “Have to make it three. I’m not in San Diego.”
“Where are you?” Then he laughs. “Let me guess. Malibu with that muscle-bound model. Am I right?”
There’s no condemnation or sarcasm in his tone. If anything, he sounds pleased. “With Lance, yes.”
“Okay. I have some things to attend to. I planned to do them after we met, but I’ll take care of them before. Just don’t get sidetracked.
I’ll be waiting.”
He disconnects.
Lance is back, dressed. Too bad. No sidetracking now. He pours his coffee into a travel mug and leans down to plant a kiss on the top of my head. “Who was that?”
“Culebra.”
“At this time of morning?”
I shake my head. “Don’t have a clue what’s up, but he wants to meet me.”
Lance scoops his keys and wallet from the counter. “Have to go. Will I see you tonight?”
“Can you come to my place?”
He smiles and I’m suddenly counting the hours.
“I’ll be there. Lock up when you go.”
I see him to the door and wave him off. It’s a small, comforting gesture, waving a lover good-bye in the morning. Normal. Human.
I like the feeling.
I get dressed and head back for San Diego. A quick stop at the cottage to shower and change clothes and I’m on my way again. When I hit the border crossing, I sail through. It’s a little before eight on a Sunday morning. Too early for most tourists to be entering Mexico but the line coming back stretches a half mile.
TJ has changed a lot in the last twenty years. Especially the border crossing and the area right around it. Where there was nothing but bad road and vendors selling pottery and junk, there is now a mall. High-end stores, air-conditioning, trendy restaurants.
But go on into town, follow Avenido Revolucion to the end, which is where the address Culebra gave me is located, and you’re back in the TJ of my youth. My mom hated coming here, but out-of-town visitors always insisted on seeing the real Tijuana.
Of course my family never made it back this far. Back through narrow streets lined with bars and brothels, a few dicey eating places and shops filled with fake turquoise jewelry and authentic Mayan pottery. Evidently the Ma yans had forged a trade agreement with China.
This is where the shows were, the infamous animal acts. Used to draw a lot of tourists until an attempt was made to shut them down. From the looks of the signs above the bars, the attempt failed.
I haven’t been here in years. Memories flood back. As a teenager, armed with fake IDs and a wad of cash, my friends and I would sneak across the border for cheap booze and adventure. I was never afraid. Stupid, naive, but never afraid. When your brother is run over by a drunk on his way to a college class, your perspective on danger changes.
The bar where I’m to meet Culebra makes me wish I’d driven the car David and I use for work, a Ford Crown Vic, instead of my Jag.
I’m afraid if I park out in front of this dive, I’ll return to a stripped hulk. What was Culebra thinking?
As soon as I pull up, a boy of about twelve steps from inside the bar.
“Are you Senorita Strong?” he asks in heavily accented English.
He’s about fourteen, tall and skinny with a shock of black hair that curls like a comma in the middle of his forehead. He projects an air of hard independence. Hard earned, too, I suspect, looking around at the surroundings. He’s wearing clean but well-worn jeans and a red Harvard sweatshirt.
I nod.
He holds out his hand. “Twenty bucks and I’ll watch your car.”
Must be Harvard Business School. I pull out my wallet and hand him a ten. “You get the other ten when I get back and my car is in one piece.”
He accepts the bill and strolls over to lean against the passenger side door. “He’s in the back room. Go straight through.”
Reluctantly, I turn away from the car. My only consolation is that if I come back and something has happened, David has a friend with a good body shop.
Loud, grinding strip music suddenly starts up from inside. I push through the double swinging doors and the music intensifies. Bad sound system, like a seventies boom box, exaggerates the bass and warbles the treble. It might as well be amplified through tin. The smell of stale beer and overripe male is strong enough to wrinkle my nose.
I forget the smell and the bad music, though, when I look around the dingy interior and see what’s going on.
Ten men in various states of inebriation slouch around a raised platform. A woman, a hard thirtysomething, struts in front of them.
Grinning, leering. She’s dressed in a halter top, breasts barely contained. And a miniskirt. She’s wearing no underwear under the skirt. It’s evident with every calculated step.
Behind her, there’s a girl and a burro. She looks about twelve. She’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Her hands and voice are busy, coaxing the burro. Readying it for the performance.
My stomach lurches and I look away.
I think I’m going to be sick. Right after I kill Culebra.
CHAPTER 4
I FLEE INTO A BACK ROOM AS DINGY AND BADLY LIT as the front, but it’s a relief to leave the scene on the other side. There are four tables spaced on a sawdust-strewn floor. Culebra is sitting by himself at a table against the far wall. He doesn ’t look up when I come in. He doesn’t sense my presence. Unusual. As a shape-shifter, he can read my thoughts and I his. Unless, like now, he’s closed the conduit between us.
It allows me to use my voice. My loud voice. “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing here?”
His shoulders jump. He looks up. Even though I’m not able to read his thoughts, I can read what plays across his face just as clearly.
He’s startled, momentarily confused by my outburst, apologetic when he understands what’s behind it. He pushes back his chair and stands up.
He gestures toward the other room. “God, I’m sorry, Anna. I should have picked somewhere else to meet. I’ve been distracted lately.”
He glances at his watch. “I know the manager here, and I had to see him. I have to be at the airport in an hour. But I am truly sorry for my thoughtlessness. Sit, please. I have much to tell you and little time.”
When I don’t immediately move toward the table, he adds, I know it doesn’t make the situation better, but that girl is sixteen and makes more in one week than her father makes in a month in the fields. She only cares for the burro.
Only cares for the burro? I saw how she was caring for the burro.
Culebra winces at my anger. She and her brother support a family of twelve.
The brother must be the kid outside watching the car. So who’s the woman? Their mother?
&n
bsp; It’s an imperfect world, Anna. You know that better than anyone. He lets a heartbeat go by before adding, She isn’t Trish.
Bringing up my niece and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother ’s friends provokes a flash of anger. I narrow my eyes and stare back at him. Not a good idea to be in my head right now. Out loud I say, “I won’t stay here.”
Culebra has the good sense not to argue. He gathers the papers from the table. “There’s a café across the street. We’ll go there.”
The music has stopped. The show must be over. When we step into the other room, men are staggering toward the door, no doubt off to find some other perversion. The urge to stop them, to break each of their necks and toss them into a Dumpster, is strong.
But stronger still is the urge to break the neck of the woman scooping scattered dollar bills and pesos from the stage. When she ’s finished, she says something in Spanish and tosses a dollar to the girl before disappearing into the back.
The girl is brushing the burro, crooning softly, ignoring the crumpled bill at her feet. She ’s pretty in the Spanish/ Native American, dark-haired, dark-eyed way. She’s slender, small-boned. Her skin has an unhealthy pallor. She spends too much time in this dump.
I fish my wallet out of my bag. I have two hundred dollars in twenties. I give it all to her. “Take the rest of the day off.”
She looks at the money, then up at me. Her expression doesn’t change. Her eyes hold neither warmth nor interest. She folds the bills out of my hand, slips them into the halter, and resumes grooming the burro.
That won’t alter her situation, Anna. I hope you didn’t think it would.
Culebra’s tone is sad and disapproving.
Of course I didn’t think it would, I’m tempted to snap back. But a part of me knows that’s a lie. I was hoping it might alter her situation for at least a day. That she would take the money and go shopping or to a movie, do anything a normal sixteen-year-old girl would do on a Sunday afternoon.
Instead, there’s a group of American teenagers, boys about seventeen years old, pushing through the doors, pointing with leering grins to the girl on stage.
My last glimpse of the girl is that she’s grinning back.
CULEBRA IS APOLOGIZING, AGAIN.
We’re settled in a booth in a café across from the bar. I can’t get that last image of the girl out of my head.
It’s all she’s ever known, Anna. She lives in a house, a real house, and provides food for her family. She has a chance to go to school . . .
God. I don’t bother to dignify that with anything other than a snort. Don’t bullshit me, Culebra. She’s not ever going to school.
I shrug out of my jacket and cast a glance around the café. While it is much cleaner and brighter than the bar, it does nothing to improve my mood. I slouch down on the bench.
“I hate it here. Why aren’t we in Beso de la Muerte?”
Culebra’s expression shifts to a look strange for him. Excited. Secretive.
“What’s going on?”
He leans toward me across the table. “I’m going away for a while.”
“Going away? Where?”
“I can’t tell you. Not now.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
He says it almost gleefully. Strange behavior for a shape-shifter whose expression normally spans the gamut from subdued to restrained.
So, I repeat, more forcefully this time, “What’s going on?”
He fidgets, not meeting my eyes, sending off a gust of impatience. “I just need to get away for a while. I wanted to tell you personally.”
“So why not tell me this on the phone or at Beso? Why drag me to this dump? There’s got to be more.”
He folds his hands and leans toward me again. “Sandra is going to be watching the bar for me.”
“Sandra?” I sit up straight. “She’s back?”
The last time I saw Sandra was four months ago, right after she won her battle against Avery. Avery, my Avery, the one I fought and staked only to find out he hadn’t died after all. He used powerful black magic to take over Sandra’s body and will. In a fight that almost killed her, Sandra accomplished what I had not. She sent Avery to hell, for real this time.
“She told me she would never come back.”
“She came because I asked her.”
“Why did you ask her?”
“I needed someone to watch the bar.”
My stomach is contracting into a barbed-wire ball of aggravation. This is like talking to a three-year-old. “Sandra turned down my offer to take over Avery’s estate. She said she was returning to her home to be with her own kind. Her pack. Now, suddenly, she’s here tending bar? You couldn’t think of anyone else? What about all your human employees? What about me?” It comes out a petulant howl of protest.
Culebra is in my head. I don’t care. I want him there. I want him to know that I’m more than a little upset that he didn’t think I would have done him this favor. Instead, he called on a stranger.
I’m sorry, Anna. You have your own business to run. I didn’t think you’d have time—
How long are you going to be gone?
I’m not sure. Two weeks, maybe.
I start to slide out of the booth. “Have a good time.”
“Anna, wait.”
He holds out a hand to stop me.
“Why? Are you going to tell me the reason you brought me to this shit hole?”
“I did.”
“No. You didn’t. You didn’t tell me a fucking thing you couldn’t have told me on the phone.”
He glances to the papers on the seat beside him. There’s a map on top. He shuffles them together so the map is hidden in the middle.
“I didn’t want you to be surprised if you went to Beso de la Muerte and found me gone and Sandra there. That’s all.”
Bullshit.
If that was it, he could have met me in Beso de la Muerte.
He picks that thought out of the ether. “Sandra is uncomfortable with seeing you. She asked if you might stay away until I get back.”
It’s the aha moment I’ve been waiting for. “Sandra doesn’t want to see me? That’s why we’re here?”
He drops his eyes.
“Why would she not want to see me?”
He looks up at me again. “She hasn’t gotten over what happened at Avery’s.”
“Wait a minute. She blames me for that?”
“It’s not rational. I know. She knows. But she lost Tamara. It’s complicated.”
No. It isn’t. I’m staring at Culebra, waiting for him to say something else. Something that makes sense. Something like Tamara was going to kill us both and her death was self-defense.
But he doesn’t. And his mind is closed.
Guess I’ll have to get answers from Sandra.
No. Please, Anna. Honor her wishes. Honor my wishes.
I stare at him. You’re actually asking me to stay away until you get back?
Yes.
He’s not looking at me. I feel agitation, it’s emanating from him like heat from fire. His lined face is creased with worry. It tempers my aggravation. I love Culebra like family. I put a hand over his. Tell me what’s wrong.
He pulls his hand back and smoothes the concern from his face. In its place is a frown of exasperation. What’s wrong is that I’ve asked you to do a simple thing. You fight me as you do anyone who will not cater to your whims. It’s unfair, Anna, and insulting.
The vehemence behind his words stuns me. The rebuke is unfair and insulting. Face hot, I snatch up my jacket and slide to the end of the booth. Hesitate as I wait for him to stop me.
He doesn’t. He makes no move to stop me. He doesn’t look up or even call a good-bye as I walk away.
The kid is still leaning against my car when I cross the road and the music has started up again in the bar. I shove the ten at him. I can ’t get out of here fast enough.
I don’t
know where I’m going until I’m back behind the wheel of my car and heading out of TJ. Culebra’s eva siveness about the why and where of this trip distresses me. What distresses me even more is the idea that Sandra holds Tamara’s death against me. I have a right to set her straight.
I don’t care if she wants to see me or not. Culebra is off to catch a plane, winging his way to some mysterious destination. How is he going to stop me?
Fuck it. I have nothing better to do today. I’m going to see Sandra.
CHAPTER 5
EVEN TO THE SUPERNATURAL COMMUNITY, BESO de la Muerte is a mystery. It takes me almost as much time to reach it from Tijuana as it does from San Diego, mostly because it ’s forty miles of bad desert road. The town is not on any map, and if a mortal happened to ignore the inhospitable surroundings and take the unmarked turn off from the main highway, it would not be long before he realized he had made a mistake and quickly head back.
He would not be able to articulate why he knew he had made a mistake. He would simply know that he had.
With one exception. If he is a mortal coming to Beso de la Muerte to be a host.
Culebra has been the sole proprietor of this ghost town turned supernatural hangout for as long as anyone can remember.
The first time I came here I was tracking down the vamp who turned me. I was hunting him because I thought he had kidnapped my partner, David, and burned down my house. Turns out, I was wrong. Avery had done those things. Just as he had laid the false trail that led me to Beso de la Muerte in the first place.
The one good thing that came from the whole debacle was meeting Culebra. I need human blood to survive. Culebra offers humans with an inclination for adventure the opportunity to make money as well as experience the best sex imaginable while providing that blood. He protects both vampires and their human hosts. Keeps vampires off the street and off the radar of those who would hunt us. No bodies left suspiciously drained of blood to attract unwanted attention.
The system works.
More important, Culebra became my friend.
At least, I thought he had become a friend.
I push the biting sting of his parting remarks from my head. Along with the guilt that I’m doing exactly what he asked me not to. A whiny little voice justifies it. Don’t I have as much right to be in Beso de la Muerte as Sandra?
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