The Dead Run (6 page)

Four or five buildings, clustered together, a quarter mile away.

Two little girls on a swing set, twice as close.

Their mothers behind them, doling out pushes.

Two men with rifles slung across their backs, strolling and chatting, close enough to the women to trade pleasantries.

Sherry fell back, looked to Eric.

He bent to whisper in her ear.

“My car is that way.” The trajectory his finger mapped cut across the compound at a forty-five-degree angle. Skirted the buildings, but took them dangerously close to the swing set.

“The guards' backs are turned,” Eric reported. “If we stay low, we'll make it.” He dropped onto his stomach, edged forward in a military crawl.

Sherry crept back toward the corner, took another look.

“Quick, Sherry! Before they figure out you're gone and lock everything down.”

“I know this place,” she said slowly. “I've been here before.”

S
ETH SLID THE
key into the lock inch by inch, listening as each ridge found its slot. Savoring the satisfaction of purpose fulfilled, bodies moving in harmony. A smile played on his thin lips at the thought of the girl on the other side of the door, ears perked to these same tiny sounds. The world housed such a remarkable multitude of realities, simultaneous and unknowable.

The final click. He turned the key and let the door swing open, closed his eyes to grant himself the pleasure of smelling sweet young Sherry Richards before he saw her.

A deep inhale.

No. No, this was all wrong.

He smelled Sherry, yes. But only a wisp of her, an echo. Another scent was stronger. It was that of a young man. Not one of Seth's people.

A stranger.

A boy in heat.

A rescuer.

Seth turned on his heel, opened his eyes, trudged up the stairs. He was careful to keep the fury he felt from rising through his pores; he'd never betrayed his emotions to his followers, and he wasn't going to start now.

Reevus and Buchanan were sitting at the kitchen table when he crossed the threshold. Marcus stood by the counter, dumping fragrant grounds into the coffeemaker.

“She's gone,” Seth said quietly.

Reevus stood so fast his chair fell over backward. “That's imposs—”

Seth crossed the room in a flash, grabbed Reevus by the throat, and slammed him to the ground.

At least this display of incompetence granted the opportunity to fulfill a dictate Seth had thus far neglected.

On the Day of Reckoning, you shall spill the blood of an impure man
.

“Anything's possible,” he whispered, tightening his grip. Reevus gasped, arms bucking, face shading toward blue, mouth yawning open, tongue lolling. Seth watched for a moment, then clamped down on the fleshy pink protuberance with his thumb and two fingers, and ripped it out.

Reevus's howl became a gurgle as blood filled his mouth. Seth tossed the curl of meat behind him. It hit the wall with a small slapping sound and slid down slowly, leaving behind a red perforated trail.

Seth stood. “You seem to have forgotten my knives, Marcus.”

“They're in the car, sir. I can—”

“Never mind.” He pointed at the pinewood butcher's block on the counter. “Just hand me one of those right there.”

“Yes, sir. Here you go.”

Seth accepted the blade, examined it a moment, then fisted the handle, lunged forward, and sliced a four-inch vent into Marcus's throat.

The aide buckled, staggered forward. He grabbed wildly at the table, slipped in the blood geysering from him, and crumpled to the ground.

Buchanan never moved an inch. His wolf eyes took it all in, darting back and forth in his skull. They were the only parts of his charred, mottled face that looked alive.

Seth opened a cupboard, unfolded a hand towel, and wiped himself clean.

“Find the Richards girl,” he said, dropping the rag. It landed on Marcus's chest and instantly turned red. “The mother's phone line may help. It's number twelve on the switchboard, in the communications room.”

“On it, boss,” Buchanan said, and rose. He stepped over the bodies of his colleagues without so much as a downward glance and headed for the door.

Seth surveyed the mess he'd made and shook his head with sympathy—for himself, surrounded as he was with men of such scant talent.

But Buchanan was different. Buchanan had never failed him.

“Before dark please, Marshall,” he said. “It's important.”

He almost said more—nearly told Buchanan that a new age was upon them, that a power beyond reckoning was so tantalizingly close Seth felt like he could almost reach out and touch it, and that the girl—

But Aaron Seth was no fool. He cut the thought short, bit his tongue, and dismissed his soldier.

 

CHAPTER 8

T
he five of them stood beneath the midday sun and squinted at one another.
Directly
beneath, it felt like. Ten seconds and you were drenched with sweat, whether you moved or not. Galvan flashed on the fat scented candle he'd once left on the hood of his high school girlfriend's car, a present she was supposed to find in the morning, on her way to school. By the time she got out of bed, it was a puddle of wax. She'd called him, furious, convinced a rival for his affection had fucked with her ride.

Thought that counts.

It didn't take long for every eyeball not his own to fix on Galvan. He appraised each man in turn: Payaso, shifting his weight from leg to leg, brain no doubt just as unable to settle. He looked even scrawnier, out here with so much open space around him, than he had in the close confines of the yard. Younger, too—dude couldn't be a day over twenty, so baby-faced he'd probably never touched a razor in his life. Galvan found himself wondering how a mouthy, twitchy twerp like Payaso had fallen in with the gang to begin with, then realized the question was its own answer. Kid never could've hacked it on his own.

Next to him stood Gutierrez, stock-still, glaring down over his own broken nose, shirt soaked through and stuck against his massive, heaving chest. He was the opposite of Payaso, in more than size. The guy was completely self-contained. There was no bend in him, no compromise or subterfuge, no such thing as a half measure. When Gutierrez was in motion, he moved toward his goal in a straight line, whether it was food or murder or sexual release.

Woe be to anybody who stood in the way.

Beside the enforcer was a middle-aged man, bald and bespectacled, squat and nebbishy. He was known in the yard as Britannica, Galvan remembered. The prison egghead; Federación Sinaloa owned the guy and hired him out to prisoners who needed legal help—appeals, transfer requests, you name it. He was said to be doing time for some kind of long con: he'd fleeced a church or Ponzied a priest. Or he hadn't. Who could separate the lies from the exaggerations? In any case, he was that rarest breed of convict: a man who'd made a path for himself by means of his brains.

What use that intellect would be out here was another story entirely.

Finally, standing farthest away was a guy Galvan could've sworn he'd never seen in his life. Never noticed, anyway. He looked like everybody else doing two-to-four on drug shit, gang shit, poor-dumb-and-desperate shit. A six-month swell to his biceps, some scattered ink-pen prison tats intended to call attention to his brand-new physique—the kind of thing that seemed like a good idea now but that he'd regret wholeheartedly if he ever decided to go straight, get a real job.

Not that a guy like this ever would. He'd pick up a package or a gun and do the same dirt the same way, be back inside before his bunk got reassigned or his lockdown muscles softened into flab.

All of them were waiting. Galvan cleared his throat. “I ain't much for speeches. You all know what we've gotta do. You saw that thing, Cucuy or whatever it calls itself. We stick together, we might make it.” He glanced down at the compass. “North is that way.”

A nod from Britannica. Payaso scowled and poked his toe at the ground, like a teenager being ordered to clean his room. Gutierrez showed nothing. It was the fourth man who spoke.

“Fuck him, and fuck you. I'm going home.”

Galvan sighed, and the baling wire screamed against his skin. “What's your name, friend?”

“I'm not your friend. And I sure as shit ain't the one with a box strapped to my back.” He spread his arms. “You can start by telling us what's in it.”

“I don't know.”

Which was true, in a way.

Nobody had told Galvan to keep it a secret, but nobody had told him to confide life's mysteries to a grab bag of scumbags, either.

Keep it simple, and keep it moving. That was gonna be his philosophy until something better came along.

“Bullshit. This pendejo is lying.” Galvan's not-friend tapped his chest, then swept a finger across them all. “I'm a free man, homes. All you vatos are free men.”

Galvan hesitated. On one hand, it would be easier to do this alone. Five motley cons weren't making it over the goddamn border together without a miracle—to say nothing of the hike there. He'd already tagged Payaso and Britannica as weak links, light on stamina. Deadweight, maybe literally. Dismissing all of them right now might be the smart play.

But something gave him pause.
Protected on all sides.
Cucuy hadn't said what from, but he must have had his reasons. And there was more at play here than Galvan could fathom.

Starting with the impossible living heart lashed to his torso.

Disobeying the—what had he called it?—the
dictate
didn't seem like an auspicious way to start. More like the kind of shit the dumbest motherfucker in a horror movie would do.

Best to keep the team intact, Galvan decided. At least for the time being.

Give it the ol' college try, anyhow.

“We've got a job to do,” he declared. “Walking away is not an option.”

The man sneered, turned on his heel, began to do just that.

Galvan's move. Again, he felt their eyes. Fuck. It was a no-win. He could tackle the guy, give him a beating, but then what? A protector who was just looking to run was no protector at all. Galvan would only be saving face.

That, and giving the others a perfect excuse to jump in, tear him apart, go their merry ways.

The hell with it. Sometimes you just had to play out a bad hand.

The song of the day chose that moment to reassert itself, Kodiak Brinks' baritone thundering unbidden through his head.

Manchild in the promised land / My name known, plus I got it sewn / like a monogram / in man / stomp a man who carry contraband if I gotta, fam . . .

Galvan stepped forward, then froze as Britannica, of all people, piped up.

“You leave and you're as good as dead, Charniss.”

The man stopped and smirked over his shoulder.

“I know
you
ain't makin' threats, Britannica.”

“It's no threat.” The con man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. They slid instantly back down. “You've been made a protector. You're bound to him now, same as the rest of us.”

Payaso, still worrying the ground with his shoe: “The fuck you mean,
bound
?”

Britannica gazed into the featureless distance. “We are the evil that wards off evil. The Messenger cannot succeed without us. But we may be sacrificed so that he does.”

Galvan sidled up to Britannica. “How do you know so much?” he asked quietly.

“I was a priest once. I've studied the ancient religions. The Aztec cults. Anything I could get my hands on.”

Payaso snorted. “You weren't no fuckin' priest. You impersonated one and robbed a whole lot of pobres blind.”

Britannica pushed his glasses again. They slalomed down a river of sweat, caught on the very tip of his nose.

“I know what I know,” he said.

“Me too,” said Charniss. “So you can shove that mumbo-jumbo up your ass. Best of luck, pendejos.”

He turned and stalked away.

Ten feet. Twenty. With each passing moment, as no calamity befell him, Galvan waited for the rest to follow.

Instead, Gutierrez thundered into action.

Charniss barely had time to realize what was happening before the brute was on him. He snapped Charniss's neck between his hands, the body spinning full around before it hit the sand.

Gutierrez didn't even bother to watch it tumble, just squared his shoulders and marched back the other way. He came to a stop in front of Galvan.

“You saved my life,” he said in a voice like gargled gravel, and extended a hand. “Nobody gonna fuck around with you as long as I'm around.”

Galvan nodded and shook. Over Gutierrez's shoulder, a thin tendril of black smoke twirled up from the ground.

Galvan craned his neck. “The hell is that?”

Gutierrez turned for a look. “What's what, boss?”

“That smoke. Looks like it's coming from his body.”

“I don't see nothing, boss.”

“Right there.” Galvan pointed. “You guys don't see that?”

“It's not smoke,” said Britannica, at Galvan's side. “You're watching his spirit leave. And no, we can't see it.” He nodded meaningfully at the box affixed to Galvan's back. “The . . .
message
has many effects on the Messenger.”

Galvan couldn't tear his eyes off the smoke. It was gathering into a ball now, some fifteen feet above the ground, like yarn gathered by an invisible hand. “That so,” he muttered.

“Reality may grow blurred. You're straddling several planes at once. The physical. The ephemeral. And the demonic.”

“I got something right here you can straddle, Padre,” Payaso called, grabbing his crotch. “Hey, gringo, we gonna move or stand here waiting for the vultures?”

Galvan forced himself to look away. “Payaso's right. Let's get going. Two rules. Don't drink too much, and don't drink too little. We're gonna be out here a long time. And another thing.”

He walked over to Payaso. “Cut the gringo shit. I'm half Mexican and another quarter Ecuadorian, okay, homes? Just happened to be born on the other side of the border. Me entiendes?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Payaso raised a fist. “La Raza unida, homes. Aztlán forever.”

Despite everything, Galvan had to laugh.

The baling wire extracted a stiff price for that. He winced, the mirth evaporating.

Gutierrez caught ahold of the joke, grinning through his busted lips. “Want me to break his jaw?” he asked, throwing Payaso in a headlock.

“Ask me again in half an hour.”

They trudged in silence for at least that long, the high sun crisping their skin and casting midget shadows on the sand.

Too hot to talk. Too hot to think.

That was probably for the best.

Galvan and Britannica fell into the lead. Payaso labored behind them, and Gutierrez brought up the rear—not because he was the slowest, Galvan knew, but because he wanted to keep an eye on everything and everybody. Picking him was starting to feel like the best decision Galvan had ever made. Not that there was a whole lotta competition in that field.

Suddenly, a chill ran through Galvan, and he pulled up short.

Britannica stopped on a dime. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I don't know. I just felt . . . cold, for a second.”

The others were beside him now, too, Payaso hipping his hands at the holdup and Gutierrez turning in a slow circle, eyes peeled for signs of danger.

Britannica didn't look surprised. “Something probably happened here, in the past. Or the future. A death, most likely.”

“If you say so, Padre. Gutierrez, kill Payaso.”

The big man's face darkened. “Boss?”

“I'm joking.”

Payaso launched a bullet of spit through the gap in his front teeth. “Look who's a fuckin' comedian.”

A flurry of motion at the corner of his eye caught Galvan's attention. He whirled toward it and found himself facing a high bluff with a scraggly beard of scrub brush clinging to the ridge.

“Tell me you guys saw that.”

“Here we go again,” from Payaso. “Whatchu see this time, man? Obi-Wan fuckin' Kenobi?”

“I thought I saw a kid, up there. A little boy. Watching us.” Galvan shaded his eyes. “That make any sense to you, Padre?”

Britannica stared up at the bluff. “Anything's possible.”

“Yeah,” said Payaso, “if you're hallucinating. Most guys in the desert, they think they see water. You must really like little boys, huh, Galvan? That what got you locked up?”

Galvan ignored him. Kept on staring at the spot.

“There!” They all saw him this time: a Mexican kid, maybe ten years old, shaggy-haired, with ragged clothes. He peered down at them for a split second, eyes big and brown, then turned and ran, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“I'm going after him,” Galvan decided.

“All due respect, chief . . . ,” Payaso said, tentative. “But why in the fuck would you do that?”

“Because he's in trouble.”

“And that's our problem why?”

Galvan raised his chin at Gutierrez. “Keep them here 'til I get back. No use all of us wasting our strength.” The enforcer nodded.

Galvan sprinted up the bluff.

In his head, the last words he'd heard as a free man played on a loop, and Galvan reflected that apparently, the whole life-ruining affair hadn't taught him one single goddamn thing.

Look who turns out to be a fuckin' Boy Scout
.

A leopard can't change its spots, he told himself. If you stop caring about the helpless, what are you?

No kind of man.

Galvan ran on.