Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss (15 page)

She lit several candles in glass tubes, inscribed with various lurid designs: burning women and tattooed hands and curious symbols. Then, she pulled his hand out of the bowl and wrapped it in gauze. She spoke some melodic words over him and then turned and left him alone in the tacky room.

Dean drifted. Dreamed of Lisa. Of home.

Xochi found Sam sitting on the curb outside the garage connected to their room. A group of prostitutes were hanging around by the door to the office, eyeing Sam like he was a raw steak in a dog kennel. He was lost in thought, however; ignoring them completely.

Xochi sat down on the curb beside him. She unscrewed the cap off the bottle her grandmother had given her, took a long swallow and then handed it to Sam. He nodded and drank. Made a funny face, like a baby who’d been given a chili pepper for the first time.

“What the hell is that stuff?” Sam asked, wiping his lips on the back of a big fist.

“
Pulque
,” Xochi said. “Help me finish the bottle and I’ll show you how to spit the last sip in the shape of a scorpion.”

“Poolkay?” He took another swig. “It’s kinda weird, but I kinda like it.”

“It’s made from fermented
maguey
, very thick and sticky,” she said. “When you get to the bottom of the bottle, you spit that last sticky mouthful onto the floor and if the
pulque
is good, your spit will look like a scorpion.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Sam said, taking one more swig and then passing the bottle back to Xochi.

She drank deep, and tried to organize her chaotic thoughts.

“Sam,” she said. “I know I can say this to you and you will not react badly, but I need to make sure you and I understand each other.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Shoot.”

“What happened to your brother is my fault,” Xochi said. “He was cut because he was trying to protect me. For that I am sorry.” She paused. Passed the bottle. “He is not out of danger. There is still a chance that he may not make it.”

“I know,” Sam said. He drank. No reaction.

“He’s a good hunter,” she said. “I like fighting next to him. If he dies tonight, I will own that responsibilty for the rest of my life.”

She could still feel Dean’s touch on the base of her spine. She held her hand out for the bottle. Sam handed it back to her. She took a swig.

“What I must ask is this,” she said. “Sam, are you still with me in this fight, no matter what happens to your brother? Because I want Dean to make it... to fight with us... but I
need
you. Do you understand? If he dies, you and I can still do this. But without you...”

“No problem,” he said without hesitation. “I’m in. No matter what.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The two of them drank in silence for a few minutes. They watched the prostitutes share cigarettes and hustle clients. One of the younger ones got lucky. Xochi watched her steer her tipsy American prey into one of the rooms, shamelessly clipping his wallet before she’d even unlocked the door.

“What does it feel like,” Xochi asked. “Not having a soul?”

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Sam replied. “I mean, I can tell something’s missing. Like I know I’m supposed to be upset by the idea that my brother might die, but I’m not. Because I know you and I can handle this hunt without him.” He looked at her, then away. “The thing is, when I know there’s something I’m supposed to be feeling, something important, I just can’t seem to leave it alone in my head. Even if I’m not sure what it is, I keep on thinking about it. Thinking in circles. It’s like...” He swirled the milky contents of the bottle, staring into nothing for a moment before taking another swallow. “It’s like having a pulled tooth. You can’t stop touching the space where it used to be with your tongue. It was much worse when I first came back. But now... I think I’m getting used to that hole. Sometimes I think I’m better off this way.”

He handed the
pulque
back to Xochi and she looked into his eyes, green eyes like Dean’s, but flat and lifeless. She suddenly felt like a monster.

What Sam was going through was horrible, a unique and profound kind of torment that she could only imagine, and never once had she even bothered to think of what it was like for him. All this time, she’d looked at the big
gringo
as nothing more than a useful tool. A piece of the puzzle presented by her visions. A weapon that she knew would be critical to her victory. She still had her soul, or whatever tattered shreds might be left after everything she’d been through, and yet here she was thinking just like Sam. Thinking only about winning this fight no matter what the cost. But every day this boy spent without his soul, he was becoming less and less human. He shouldn’t be wasting time hunting with her, he should be fighting to get his soul back. Before he gets too comfortable with that hole.

“No,” she said, handing him the bottle. “You’re not better off like this. Now, for this hunt, maybe, but not in the long run.”

“You don’t know the whole story,” Sam said. “I have my reasons.” He drank. Wiped his lips. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. All you need to know is that I’m gonna see this thing through with you. You can count on me.”

Xochi nodded. She wasn’t going to argue with that.

“You know,” Sam said, passing the bottle back. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. Something that’s been bothering me for a while now.”

Xochi drank and waited for him to elaborate.

“This knife your sister has,” he said. “The one that cut Dean. You say it could kill our Borderwalker?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So why didn’t she use it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she had her shot, why didn’t she take it?”

Xochi frowned.

“Dean stopped her,” she said. “Then the Borderwalker crossed over before she could...”

“No.” Sam shook he head. “Dean only went after her when she threw that elbow at you, but she had plenty of time before that. I think she didn’t want to kill the thing.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“You tell me.”

Xochi took another thick, sticky swallow from the bottle, but any kind of comfortable intoxication that may have been building up was swiftly burned away by thorny, unanswered questions.

Was Teo just toying with the Borderwalker, or was there something more sinister behind her actions? Why was she there in the first place? How did she fit into all this?

They drank together in silence for a few more minutes. The bottle was nearly empty.

“Tell you what,” Sam said suddenly. “Why don’t we forget about all this and get a room.” He leaned close to her, put an enormous paw on her thigh. “I’ll let you do you anything you want to me. Anything. Upside of having no soul.” He drank. Smiled. “No inhibitions.”

“You know, your brother also asked me to make love with him tonight.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam said, dipping his chin and raising his eyebrows. “I’m bigger.”

She laughed. Took the bottle.

“No thank you, Sam,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, taking his hand off her leg and showing her his palms. “You’re into him. I get it. Anyway, to be fair, he needs it way more than I do.”

“I’m not ‘into him’” she said. “I just... We have more important things to worry about right now.”

“Man,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You two are like peas in a frickin’ pod.”

Sam stood and took his wallet from his hip pocket, extracting a few American bills and then handing the wallet to Xochi.

“Hold this for me, will you?” he said. “I’m gonna order up some room service.”

He walked over to the group of prostitutes by the office. Xochi watched with amusement as he struggled to communicate with them using his high school Spanish. He was right, he could get his point across when he needed to. He walked away with two of the best-looking girls, one on each arm.

Xochi sucked the last of the
pulque
from the bottle and spit the gooey dregs on the cement between her boots. The resulting blob didn’t look much like a scorpion. More like a spiny butterfly.

She thought about checking in on Dean, but knew she didn’t need to. Toci was with him and he would either make it or he wouldn’t. Having Xochi standing around staring at his bare chest wasn’t going to speed up the healing process.

She thought about Teo. About what Sam had said. About what Huehuecoyotl had said. She wondered once again what they were really up against.

When Dean woke up, the first thing he saw was the back of Xochi’s neck. No tattoos on that particular area, just smooth brown skin and a few little wisps of black hair that had escaped her braids. He’d only had a couple mouthfuls of that weird liquor, but if he’d somehow managed to score with Xochi after all and didn’t remember a thing, he was going to be seriously pissed.

Taking more detailed stock of the situation, Dean saw that she was fully dressed, sleeping on top of the covers with her back to him. Highly unlikely that she would have bothered to get dressed again after the horizontal mambo but before falling asleep.

He reached out to wake her, brushing her tattooed arm with his fingers.

She reacted with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, grabbing his wrist and rolling toward him, switchblade open in her other hand.

“Good morning,” Dean said. “Coffee?”

She let him go, closing the knife and looking sheepish.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m a little jumpy. How are you feeling?”

He paused for a moment to take internal inventory. Opened and closed his bandaged hand. He felt good. Better, in fact, than he had in months.

“Okay, I think,” he said.

“Good,” Sam said. Dean hadn’t even noticed his brother, sitting silently in a plush red chair on the far side of the room. “We gotta get out of Dodge and beat the Borderwalker to Fullerton.”

“I’m glad you are still with us, Dean,” Xochi said, rolling away from him and sitting up, stretching her arms above her head. “Toci said your soul is very strong. Almost as strong as a woman’s.”

Dean laughed.

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Xochi stood, rolling her neck to work the kinks out while stepping into her boots. Sam stood too, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Laptop already packed up and ready to hit the road.

Dean lay there for a moment with the fuzzy blanket clutched against his bare chest, eyeing the inside-out scatter of his clothes on the carpet.

“Um... I’d better...” He flapped his hand in the directions of his clothes. “You know.”

“What?” Xochi asked. “You’re shy? You only allow old ladies to see you naked?”

She snickered and cut him off before he could come up with anything resembling a snappy retort.

“We’ll be waiting in the car,” she said.

Xochi dropped them back off at the pedestrian border crossing, promising to meet them in Fullerton. When Dean pressed her to set an exact meeting place, she refused. She said that she would find them.

Getting back into the U.S. was a much bigger deal than getting out. Drug-sniffing dogs were walking along the line. Guys with rubber gloves and humorless scowls searched through Sam’s laptop bag for nearly half an hour. For once, Dean actually hadn’t done anything questionable but he still felt anxious and convinced they’d find some reason to detain him. He could only imagine how much harder it would have been if he or his brother looked even vaguely Latino.

When they finally made it back to American soil, Dean was so happy to see his own car he almost kissed the hood.

“Think she can tell we’ve been rolling in another Impala?” Sam joked as Dean got behind the wheel.

“Don’t listen to him, baby,” Dean said, patting the dash. “I swear, she meant nothing to me. I didn’t even drive, honest.”

The journey to Fullerton was pretty uneventful. They passed more of the running immigrant family signs and some sort of weird power plant that looked like a giant pair of silicone breasts. Traffic was light, almost non-existent. Even with a stop for chow and coffee, they still made it to Porcayo’s place in record time.

Fullerton was suburban and unremarkable. Porcayo lived in an unremarkable house on an unremarkable street. It was a Witness Protection kind of neighborhood. The kind of place you forgot the second you left.