Shady Lady (38 page)

The quaint location attracted a lot of foot traffic from the beach, but Min had loyal local clientele as well. I knew this place like the back of my hand, its shelves stocked with wicker baskets, each containing a unique tincture or poultice. She also sold fresh dry herbs and oil extracts, candles and soaps, all handmade and carefully formulated to promote holistic healing. Even the tourists took home something, which I’d always thought meant she had laid a mild prosperity charm on the place. Not that Min would ever admit it.

The store smelled of peppermint today, probably due to the candles flickering on the countertop. Sachets filled with healing herbs were arranged around the cash register. I stood and drank the place in. When I’d left, I didn’t think I would ever see it again, not even in my dreams. Here, I fell in love with customer service, working with Min. When I hadn’t been traveling with Chance, I helped out; her shop had been like a second home to me. It all looked so real, from the glass storefront to the wicker chairs in the corner where Min did consultations.

By the darkness, it was late, though. The CLOSED sign showed in the window, and so I went through into the back room that served as her office. Min had decorated it with her customary panache: delicate screens and several water fountains, no metal file cabinets or ugly desk for her. Chance sat beside his mother over a pot of green tea and
maejakgwa
, the ginger cookies he loved. It looked as if he hadn’t cut his hair in six months, the most disheveled I’d ever seen him.

“You should go before it’s too late.” She sighed and shook her head. Her expression was heart-wrenchingly familiar to me. . . . Min had never been one to take her son’s part blindly. “Might be already. Stubborn, foolish boy.”

I had the sense I’d entered a conversation at the midway point, but if I lingered, I might make sense of it. But the naked grief in his face astonished me.

“It’s not. I won’t let it be.”

“Some things, dear son, are not yours to control. That was always part of the problem, you know. You’re too like your father.”

His father?
My ears perked, but they spoke no more of him. Chance bowed his head and she put her hand on it, as if in blessing.

“You’ll be all right?” he asked.

“Dae Hyun will watch out for me. Go with a clear conscience.”

“Very well. I’m leaving tonight.” Chance rose and kissed her cheek, and then strode out of her office.

Before I could follow, however, Chuch woke me with a friendly nudge.
Dammit. Just when things started to get interesting.
Then I got annoyed with myself for giving a damn what Chance was doing. I’d moved on. Jesse was my future. With some effort, I forced the unnerving dream from my mind.

“Wanna play some cards?”

With a moan, I sat up and invited him to deal me in. Five hands of Texas Hold ’Em later, I checked my e-mail. As Ramos had promised, my phone let me do so if I didn’t take too long about it, as Net access burned twice as many minutes. Unlike the other times, I found a curt message in my box.
I’ll kill you myself.
There was no signature, just a phone number, but my enemy had finally taken the bait.

Euphoria bubbled through me. Before I could rethink it, I dialed; I didn’t wait for the other party to speak. “You really brave enough to face me?”

“Tomorrow.” No preliminary chatter, no questions. Montoya named a set of coordinates and a time. “Across the border, past Nuevo Laredo.”

I’d driven through there, lonely stretch of road between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey. No chance anyone would stumble into our business. Good enough.

“I’ll be there. And you’d
better
be, Diego, or I’ll keep burning your pretty houses down. I only had the one, see, and now it’s gone, so I’d like to level the playing field.” Without Escobar, I didn’t have the resources to do so, of course—I wouldn’t be taking any more chances on his men—but Montoya didn’t know that.

He sucked in an angry breath.
“Buena suerte, bruja roja. La necesitarás.”

I disconnected before Montoya could.

Chuch sat watching me. He shook his head. “You’re really gonna do it.”

“It’s the best way.”

“If you say so.”

Setting his misgivings aside, I rang Escobar.

To my surprise, the big man himself answered this time. “What a pleasure to hear from you. I took care of the leak. Ordinarily, the allegiance of such a one would not merit my personal attention, but I ordered them to look after you. I cannot permit such lapses.” He paused. “It was Petrel, if you’re curious. He’ll trouble you no more.”

I should feel something now. The tall, lanky young man breathed no more, and I made it happen. But I could only muster impatience to finish this.

“Good to know. I’ve got a meeting with Montoya set for tomorrow.” Quickly I told him where and when. “Can you come up with a strategy so soon?”

“Of course,” he said, as if the question were ridiculous. “I’ll send Paolo to you.”

Montoya would likely show up with five trucks full of armed gunmen, Vicente the sorcerer, and God knew who else. He intended to send me in with a seventeen-year-old boy for backup? Dear God. Maybe Escobar wanted me dead.

I tried to point out as much. “I may need more help.”

“He is adequate to the task, I promise you.”

“Why?” I’d feel safer with a crew of gunmen at my back.

“He wants to prove himself to me. Therefore, he will fight with more dedication than any hundred hired soldiers. His skills are not in question.”

Arguing with him would offer the same benefit as banging my head against the trailer wall, so I just listened as Escobar told me where to meet Paolo. From there, we would travel together to the appointed location.

More waiting. I took Butch for a short walk around the trailer, and at midnight, Chuch got a call from Eva. He listened, spoke little, and hung up quickly.

“I’m sorry,
prima
. I meant to see this through with you—and she wanted me to, but the baby’s got other ideas.”

“She—or he—is coming?”

He already had one foot out the door. “
Sí
. Gotta go. Ramon will stop by in the morning and leave you something to drive. He just knows that you’re a friend I’m helping out.”

“My best to your family. Thanks, so . . .” But I was talking to empty air.

The night crept by. I lay on the couch because the bed still smelled sour, and I wouldn’t sleep much anyway. At dawn I showered, though I had nothing clean to wear, and ate the last of the peanut-butter crackers, the only thing left from our bare-bones grocery run.

A few hours later, Ramon dropped off a Chevelle, total piece of crap; I hoped it ran better than it looked. Another car pulled up behind him, his ride, I guessed. They didn’t knock. He left the keys in the ignition and I left the trailer as soon as they drove off.

Last leg of this mess.
My hands shook a little as I went to meet Paolo. He was sitting in Denny’s—a mundane place for this meeting—just as Escobar had promised. In this setting, he looked even younger than he had at his father’s house. It was a wonder nobody had asked him why he wasn’t in school.

“Breakfast?” He rose as I approached, well mannered in a way I found odd, given what I knew of his father.

“We have time.” And I was hungry.

While we ate, we made small talk. Nobody could’ve guessed what we’d be doing later that night. Hell,
I
didn’t even know.

Though pancakes and eggs had sounded delicious, I couldn’t finish them. I fed the sausage to Butch in discreet nibbles. He took care of the bacon too. Afterward, I paid the bill, and we headed out to the Chevelle.

Paolo had a black duffel; I had only my purse. It seemed we both traveled light. He got in the passenger side, his face serene. Perhaps he was just too young to worry about the future, but I didn’t think so, and his serenity calmed my nerves. I trusted that Escobar wouldn’t risk a gifted heir without a strong conviction that he could prevail.

“Does he have you do stuff like this a lot?” I asked, putting the car in gear.

“No. This is a test.”

My heart nearly stopped. “Of what?”

“My skill. My loyalty. If I pass, he will reward me with more responsibility in the organization.”

“Rite of manhood?” Talk about hard-core. Escobar sure loved his trials.

“
Sí
, near enough.”

Throughout the day, I got a number of phone calls for a woman named Juanita. Apparently she’d traded her phone to Ramos without informing her creditors. I blew them off, and at noon, we headed for the border.

Crossing into Mexico never took very long. While the United States cared a great deal who got in, Mexico just wanted people to spend money. The agent checked our documents with cursory interest and waved us through.

Across the border lay a shantytown bearing the unlikely name of Blanca Navidad. The residents who founded the place claimed it snowed in the desert when they started building their homes: tin roofs, scrap wood and metal, chunks of scavenged cement. As far as I could tell, they had no electricity, and from the smell, no sewage disposal either. Most of the Navidadians worked in the
maquiladoras
, which were duty-free export assembly plants. The place made me sad as we drove past.

“I would live in a place like this,” Paolo said softly, “if my father had not taken me in.”

As far as I was concerned, Escobar owed the kid more than a living, but it never did any good to get between child and parent. “Lucky he did.”

“Not really. He kept only the gifted. My mother was nothing, a native whore.”

My fingers clenched on the steering wheel. “She gave you life. I’m sure she loved you.”

Paolo raised a brow. “Did she? Is that why she sold me to
el Señor
for eight hundred pesos and twenty-one grams of skag?”

Shit. Maybe you’re better off with Escobar.
Since I didn’t know what to say, I drove on in silence. We passed through Nuevo Laredo and kept going. I remembered accompanying Chance to the
zona
, and how he’d fought for me there.
No. Not Chance. Think about Jesse. Wonder if he’s healing.

The surrounding land was dry, a long, low valley. According to the GPS, we had arrived at the correct coordinates—and several hours early. We’d long since left the main highway, off the beaten path on a dirt road. I wanted to check the place out, so I parked the car and got out to look around.

Montoya had chosen well; there was no cover for miles. Mountains in the distance on either side rendered this spot remote in ways few modern locations could match. There was just endless brown scrub sloping to unspoiled peaks.

Now we just had to wait. Butch didn’t seem to mind; he could nap anywhere. I fidgeted and shifted and considered all the potential worst-case scenarios. In self-defense, I studied my grimoires and tried to commit a couple of spells to memory that might work, if I could cast them quick enough. I sat on the hood of the car and watched the road behind us. I pondered my options.

After arguing a little with Paolo about the viability, I went to work with salt and chalk dust, placing them carefully to the left of the driver’s door. Against the dirt road, it didn’t show, but the energy I used in crafting the circle mattered more than my tools; when my enemy arrived, I’d be ready.

At last the bass roar of a powerful engine signaled an arrival, and the dust trail rising confirmed what we heard. I got my athame out and hid it behind my back. As he parked, Montoya had to be thinking,
Look at her . . . she’s helpless. Dead meat.

A stocky man in late middle years, Montoya eased out of the driver’s seat, an enormous gun dangling from one hand. He hadn’t brought an army of thugs, as I expected. Instead, only Vicente emerged. Even numbers? That decision suggested Montoya had complete confidence in his brother’s ability to deal with me up close, and I hated to think what led to that surety.

“You’re dumber than you look,” Montoya growled, leveling his gun on me. “You brought a boy with you? Only a boy?”

Before I could reply, Vicente lobbed a spell, crackling blue energy. I dove behind the Chevelle and it hit the hood with a hiss, dissipating with the smell of a lightning strike.
Fuck. He called it before and held it ready. I don’t even know to
do
that. There’s no fucking way I can beat him in a straightup duel.

Paolo crouched beside me as Montoya opened fire. They sprayed the dirt and pelted the old Chevy; I hoped like hell they wouldn’t break my summoning circle. I needed to get close enough to pull my ace in the hole, but with the two of them out there, it would take some quick thinking to push those five feet.

“I thought you can’t die,” Montoya taunted in heavily accented English. “Made a deal with the devil, no? Yet you cower like a little bitch, not the fearsome red witch. So beg me, and I make your death quick instead of giving you to Vicente, like I plan.”

His brother rumbled a low, awful laugh, full of such anticipation as to make my skin crawl. “Don’t beg,” the sorcerer said.

More bullets sprayed the ground, slamming into the Chevelle; we were pinned down. If only I’d been faster, if only I hadn’t hesitated. Dammit, we needed to get to the circle. Fear slammed in my veins, creating adrenaline, and to compound my desperation, Vicente started a new spell.

“Is there anything you can use nearby?” I whispered to Paolo.

In answer, he leaned out and scanned the ground. “Nothing but rocks and dust.”

That was an old schoolyard trick, but given our situation, it couldn’t hurt. “Try to distract them, but don’t get shot.”

I shuddered to think what Escobar would do if I survived but his son did not. By the sound of their footsteps, our enemies were pushing closer. Montoya laughed, the son of a bitch. I rolled beneath the car and squirmed on my belly as a minor dust devil sprang to life. They cursed and spit, trying to clear their eyes and mouths. The sorcerer’s concentration faltered, and Paolo taunted him with gutter Spanish; I understood only about half the words, but judging by Vicente’s roar, the boy had flair.