The Devil's Bag Man (15 page)

“Consider it done.”

Galvan unfolded another finger. It was clear he was making this up as he went along, thought Nichols, wondering how far a man with bottomless leverage and zero fucks to give might take things.

“Number two. You're out of the drug business, as of right now.”

Rubacalo nodded vigorously. “You have no idea how happy it will make me to comply, Mr. Galvan. This entire—”

“I'm not finished. You're in a new business now, Rubacalo. Barrio Azteca's new job is destroying Federacíon Sinaloa. One cartel is one too many. They've gotta both be gone.”

Rubacalo was momentarily speechless. “That . . . will not be easy,” he said at last.

Galvan shrugged. “Yeah, well, that's your fuckin' problem. Why bother to save the world from Cucuy if a bunch of scumbags are just gonna fuck it up again?”

“What you're talking about could take years, Mr. Galvan. And you do not have years. You may not have weeks.”

The stalemate lasted fifteen of the longest seconds of Nichols's life, and then Galvan said, “Well, we'll see what you can get done in a couple weeks then, chief. Good-faith-effort-type shit. After that, you'll be responsible to these men.” He pointed at Nichols and Fuentes. “I trust them.”

“You shouldn't trust Fuentes,” Nichols muttered.

“Okay then, fuck Fuentes,” Galvan amended, not missing a beat. “We're gonna set it up so that if you renege on anything, my buddy Nichols here has enough dirt on you to lock your ass in jail for life.”

“Agreed.”

Rubacalo waited.

Galvan unfolded another finger.

“Number three. I got a daughter. I want her provided for.”

“Oh, she's been provided for,” called a voice, loud and far away.

Nichols spun, and his heart sank.

Crossing the field, with guns to their heads and an army at their backs, were Sherry Richards and Ruth Cantwell.

T
hat's far enough,” Domingo Valentine declared, and the procession came to a halt, a hundred feet from Galvan and the men to whom he spoke.

One of them, Valentine noted with surprise, was none other than Herman Rubacalo.

What in hell was the leader of Barrio Azteca doing here?
he wondered. But it was irrelevant. Domingo Valentine's entire life had led to this moment. He would save his god, free the Ancient One from this crude prison of flesh and blood, sinew and bone, or he would die trying.

They all would.

What Valentine lacked in detailed knowledge of the esoteric, the mystical, the sacred, he made up for in instinct, and in will. If Cucuy was trapped inside the body of a man who refused to relinquish his own humanity, then Valentine would strip the humanity from him by force.

It would not be the first time. If Valentine's tenure as the Great One's procurer had taught him anything, it was that humanity could not withstand atrocity. Force a man to act like a savage beast—hell,
allow
him to—and he would be a man no more.

That had been Valentine's plan, until a greater inspiration struck.

Force a man to act like a god, and how could he oppose one?

“Send over the girls,” Domingo Valentine commanded, and the ranks of his contingent—half a dozen True Natives, a dozen Ojos Negros guards—cleaved open, to reveal four of the finest specimens the procurer had ever culled, their wrists and ankles bound with chains.

Their purity was breathtaking; their very skin glowed with the health of youth.

And the fear of death.

The bikers prodded the girls, and they began a halting march. If they felt hope at parting company with the men who had kidnapped and imprisoned them, it did not show.

Valentine squared off with Galvan and beckoned Knowles to bring Sherry closer. The biker prodded her, gun to her back, and the girl stumbled to his side. Valentine could smell her hair. He made a show of grabbing a handful and lifted the soft tresses to his nose, never breaking eye contact with Galvan.

“Hello, Galvan,” he said, volleying his voice across the distance between them. All this would have played better at greater proximity, but that was not an option. Even at this remove, he was well within the usurper's kill zone.

Or he would be, if not for the leverage he had.

“As you can see, I've got your daughter here. And her friend. I assume you'd like them to go on living, is that right?”

Galvan's only answer was a piercing stare, a seething look of rage. Valentine could see the Ancient One's power radiating from him—lighting Galvan up from the inside, somehow. He felt his resolve strengthen and added his own gun to Knowles's, pressing it to Sherry's temple. His knuckles whitened around the grip, and Valentine's whole body vibrated with adrenaline.

“I know how strong you are,” he said. “And how fast. But you're not going to reach me faster than these bullets reach your daughter's brain. I think we can agree on that, yes?”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“To see how much you love your daughter. It's simple. Follow my instructions, and she lives. Disobey me, and she dies.”

Galvan spread his arms wide, showed Valentine his palms. A gesture
of surrender, Valentine knew, but somehow it read like a display of power. As if all that lay between his outstretched hands—Valentine and Knowles, the bikers and the guards—might be crushed within them.

“I'll do whatever you want.”

Yes, I believe you will
.

The girls had crossed the field. They stood before Galvan, shivering in terror, and Valentine felt a surge of sexual excitement as he anticipated what he was about to say. The way the drug-dulled fear on their faces would transform itself to vivid, pink-cheeked panic.

But it was Rubacalo whose voice rang out next.

“Aren't you going to introduce yourself, Domingo?” the cartel chief sneered. “Tell him who you are?”

He turned to Galvan and pointed a finger toward Valentine.

“He was Cucuy's errand boy. His job was girls. Leading the lambs to the slaughter.” The cartel chief stepped closer to Galvan's side. “Whatever he asks you to do, it's a trick. A trap. It's what Cualli wants. You cannot—”

“My conditions could not be simpler. If your daughter's life is precious to you, then these girls must die in her place.”

Rubacalo looked stricken. “He wants you to—”

Valentine cut him off, pleased at the chance to put that arrogant son of a bitch in his place. He would have mowed them all down, given the order and watched the bullets fly until only Galvan remained standing, if not for the possibility that the Timeless One might have some need for one of them.

“I am perfectly capable of telling him what I want,” he snapped, and he felt a cruel smile bloom across his face. He had not expected to find joy in these fraught moments, tranquility in the eye of this all-consuming storm.

They waited.

Valentine pulled himself up to his full height.

“The Great One sustained himself on the hearts of virgins. I know he is inside you. We must feed him.”

THE DAMS WERE
broken. The firewalls, breached. Flood and flame filled Galvan, pounded and burned until he thought he might burst open like a geyser or explode into white-hot shrapnel.

Cucuy had broken loose inside. Galvan could feel, hear, sense him
in every pore. Every fiber. Every cell. This was it. The push. The stand. The reckoning.

Kill them eat them devour ravish be a GOD
.

Galvan wanted to fight, to sever and shut down whatever chamber of himself Cucuy was darting through, but he could not.

It wasn't that Cucuy was everywhere.

It was that Cucuy was right.

Everything Galvan had ever done had been for Sherry.

He could not let her die.

You cannot let her die
.

His thoughts were blurring, merging with Cucuy's, the outlines of the world fuzzy now;
there is no other way
.

There is no other way.

Kill devour ravish feast
.
Embrace your power
.
Accept your glory
.

Galvan's body thrummed, as if a low electrical charge ran through it. Every muscle seemed to vibrate. It was excruciating and exhilarating at once.

He stepped toward the girls. One turned and ran, only to trip over her shackles and fall headlong to the ground.

Another dropped to her knees and closed her eyes, lips moving rapidly in prayer.

The other two stood, rooted to their spots, eyes wide and full, their bodies racked with tremors.

“I will make it quick,” he told them, saliva pooling in his mouth, throat burning in anticipation of warm, throbbing muscle, blood.

Devour ravish feast or let your daughter die
.
Become a god
.
Save her
.
Save her
.

Galvan saw his arm rise, his hand tense into a claw—watched it happen as if from a great remove. And yet, at the same time, he had never felt more at one with his body. The strength coursing through it was more than he could contain, or control.

To crush this girl's fragile breastbone and withdraw the delicate organ within seemed the easiest thing in the world.

The easiest, and the most natural. The most just. He would do it with reverence, with dispassion. He would do what he had to, and so would she.

And she. And she. And she.

Galvan drew back his hand, felt it pulse with energy, a cobra about to strike.

Kill devour ravish feast
.
Embrace your power
.
Save your daughter
.

Yes. If Sherry did not live, then all his agony, all his silence, had been in vain.

“I have to,” Galvan whispered. And then, “I'm sorry.”

Somewhere far off, he heard a cry, a desperate “No!” and knew it was Sherry.

But it didn't matter. It only proved that she was worth saving.

Galvan's hand shot forward, his eyes squeezed shut, and the girl shrieked. A flash of hot wet pain tore through his body.

He opened his eyes and found a Bowie knife embedded three inches deep in his forearm.

Bob Nichols's fist was wrapped around the handle. His anguished face floated an inch from Galvan's.

“I can't let you do this,” he panted. “Snap out of it, Jess. We'll find another way.”

For a moment, everything froze. Not just the scene, but Galvan's body. The pain ceased. The ability to move went with it. He was ice. A sculpture of a man, melting in the sun. There was no sound, no air. A lacuna of vacancy. A suspension of time.

Then it was over and the world was an inferno, a roiling pit of fire. Red noise filled Galvan's head. There were no more words—just a hissing, a crackling like the sound of devouring flame.

And there were no more thoughts.

Only obstacles and actions.

Sacrifices.

He grabbed the sheriff's hand, fisted around the knife, and crushed it in his own. Pulled the blade free from his arm, whipped it backhand through the air.

A broad sluice of crimson flew from Nichols's throat. He dropped to his knees, grasping at the wound. In an instant, his hands were covered in blood.

Eyes frantic.

Frantic.

Glassy.

He fell sideways into the dust.

Screams pierced the air, but Galvan was beyond hearing them.

It had to be done
.

No way of knowing whether the sentiment was his own or the other's, whether it referred to the act he'd just committed or the one he was about to.

Maybe it was all the same. Time and intention collapsed, the world a giant sinkhole, swallowing everything down, vomiting it back up and swallowing it again.

Galvan reached the girl.

And reached inside.

It was as easy as he'd imagined. His hand was like steel; her body soft, yielding, complicit. It shuddered and twitched, the death rattle orgasmic.

Galvan looked down at the heart in his hand.

It was beautiful and delicate, soft and tough and vulnerable.

The vessel of the gods.

Life itself.

He threw back his head and watched the stars wheel above him.

Opened wide and felt the organ throb as it slid down his throat.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Gone.

He closed his eyes in ecstasy and the past and future vanished, the world of symbols and memories and possibilities incinerated by an eternal, never-ending, fearless
now
.

The world is a banquet
.
You are a god
.

I am a god
.

“Galvan!”

The shout punctured his reverie. Galvan turned and found Louis and Manuel advancing on him slowly, with rifles trained, backs hunched, knees bent—as if he were a deer they'd snuck up on and hoped to plug before he bucked.

“Galvan,” the old farmer said again, as he duck-stepped closer.
“Come back, man. Come on. Don't make me shoot.”

Galvan stared at him. At the road map of lines etched into his face, the sweat pouring down it, the thick vein pulsing in his neck.

He had nurtured some feeling for this man. But that sentiment was distant now, impossible to access no matter how he wrung his brain.

All he saw before him was an insect. A beetle. Earthbound and impudent. Blind, deaf, and dumb.

He spread his arms.

“Shoot all you want.”

The farmer's brow furrowed, but he aimed his weapon. Galvan inhaled deep and waited. Eager. The spatter of buckshot would feel like rain against his skin. He would soak in the shower and then push it back out of his body, listen as it clattered to the ground, watch the shooter's jaw drop.

Grab that jaw and rip it clean off. Feel the bone's weight in his hand. Pitch it like a horseshoe, far away.

Then have himself another snack.

The very thought sent Galvan into an eyelid-fluttering paroxysm of bliss.

“Do it!” he bellowed, and two shots rang out, biting at his words.

Galvan looked down at his torso. He'd felt nothing.

And for good reason. Louis and Manuel had not squeezed their triggers.

Rubacalo had squeezed his, and they lay dead on the ground.

Galvan stared down at their bodies.

At Nichols.

At the girl.

The yawing, open cavity of her chest.

He blinked, and for an instant the fog of madness lifted.

What have I done?

The answer came from within.

You have failed
.

He felt his eyes close, like twin curtains descending on the stage play of his life.

Good-bye, Jess Galvan
.

And then he was gone.