Xochi held the knife out over the fire, then passed it to Claudia.
Xochi was in her usual tank top. Claudia had on a deep V-neck shirt and Sam a button-down. None of them had any problem exposing the necessary anatomy without removing any clothing. As Dean watched first Claudia and then his brother perform the ceremonial cuts, he really wished he was wearing anything other than a high necked T-shirt. There was just no way around the fact that if he was going to do what Xochi wanted, he would have to remove his shirt. Which wouldn’t be any kind of big deal at all if he didn’t have a crushed-out teenybopper staring at him like he was the second coming of Elvis.
Sam handed him the knife. He shrugged and pulled his shirt over his head, figuring it would be best to just get this over with. He focused on the flames in front of him as he ran his fingers over his left pec, just below the pentagram tattoo. He could feel Claudia’s eyes on him but he ignored her, concentrating on tracing the pulse of his heart beneath his skin. He made the cut.
He gathered his blood on the blade and let it run into the fire, then handed the knife back to Xochi. He couldn’t help but notice that Claudia wasn’t the only one watching him as he put his shirt back on.
Xochi spoke some strange, melodic words and then fell silent.
“Now what?” Sam asked.
She took out a handful of copal and tossed it into the fire.
“Now we wait,” she said.
* * *
Nothing happened for a good twenty minutes. Dean just stood there, feeling hostile, exhausted and really not in the mood for any of this. He wondered how many cumulative hours of his life he’d spent hanging around waiting for something spooky to show up. He could hear coyotes in the distance, moving closer.
When Huehuecoyotl finally appeared, Dean was unnerved and more than a little angry to see the trickster god wearing his face.
It was Dean’s image, but it wasn’t like looking in a mirror. More like looking at a heavily retouched photo. This version of Dean didn’t have the two-day stubble or the sleepless dark circles and budding crow’s feet around his eyes. It didn’t have the annoying zit Dean could feel coming in just above his right eyebrow, or the scatter of freckles he’d always hoped he’d grow out of but never did. This version was also wearing skin-tight black-velvet lace-up pants that Dean wouldn’t be caught dead in. When that other him smiled at Claudia, Dean saw a teasing hint of vampire fangs and felt a sick helpless anger in the pit of his belly.
“Huehueteque,” Xochi said. “You honor these humble hunters with your presence.”
“The honor is mine, Xuihxochitl,” he replied stepping up to Claudia and touching the cut on her chest. “Tell me, who is this little seer?”
“My name is Claudia,” she said determinedly. “I’m not afraid.”
“No?” He turned to look at Xochi. “Such strong magic in this one.” He took Claudia’s chin in his hands, leaning close enough to kiss. “But you’ve always known you’re special, haven’t you? That’s why the others don’t understand you. They are jealous of your power.”
“Take your hands off her,” Dean said, stepping forward.
“Dean,” Xochi said. “Stay calm.”
“She’s just a kid,” Dean said.
“And who are these white men?” Huehuecoyotl asked, never breaking eye contact with Claudia.
“With respect,” Xochi said. “They are my friends.” She took a step closer, trying to take his attention away from Claudia. “We want your advice, to help your lost granddaughter. To cure her affliction and make her human again so that the Tzitzimimeh cannot use her to enter our world.”
“That was your idea, wasn’t it?” Huehuecoyotl asked Claudia.
“Yeah,” she said, even though it had been Sam who had originally suggested it.
“Smart as well as beautiful,” he replied, caressing her flushed cheek.
“Look,” Dean said. “I’m not just gonna stand here and let an underage girl get hit on by a thousand-year-old pervert dressed up as me.”
Huehuecoyotl turned to Dean, green eyes flashing like a cat’s in the dark. He backed away from Claudia.
“Righteous Dean Winchester,” he said. “Brave protector of innocents. An angry boy wearing his dead father’s shoes. Tell me, Dean, how did it go the last time you tried to play Daddy?”
Huehuecoyotl’s face flickered, going ugly and animal for a brief heartbeat. Then he became Lisa.
No make-up, dark hair tousled from sleep. Dressed in nothing but an old flannel shirt that she loved and Dean always threatened to donate to charity while she was in the shower. He never thought he’d see that ugly old shirt again, and seeing it now made him coldly furious. He refused to be manipulated that easily.
“She cries every night,” Huehuecoyotl said. His voice was Lisa’s voice, rough with tears. “Alone in the bed you once shared. She is broken inside forever because of you. She wishes she’d never met you.”
The thing that looked like Lisa stepped closer to him. Close enough that he could smell the vanilla-scented moisturizer she always put on before bed. He clenched his fists.
“And in her darkest heart,” Huehuecoyotl said looking up at him with Lisa’s big brown eyes, “she wishes Ben had never been born. Because every time she looks at him, she sees you.”
“Ben is not my son,” Dean said. He could feel a small muscle bunching up and pulsing at the hinge of his jaw. “She did a blood test.”
“Did she? Interesting how this test was able to eliminate you without a obtaining a sample of your blood. Modern science has made such miraculous advances.”
Dean narrowed his eyes, defensive.
“She probably got a sample from that bartender first and it matched, so she didn’t need one from me.”
“Right,” Huehuecoyotl smiled. “That bartender.”
Dean didn’t say anything. The doubt that had always been there in the back of his mind was off the leash and raging.
“Lisa was afraid to tell you the truth because she didn’t want the boy to become a hunter like his father. Especially after you almost killed him.”
“Don’t listen to him, Dean,” Sam said. “Remember what Xochi said. He’s just messing with you.”
“Don’t listen to Lisa,” Huehuecoyotl said with a slow smile. “Because, let’s be honest. You don’t really care about Lisa and Ben anymore anyway, do you? I know what you really want.”
His form flickered again and he became Xochi. Hair unbound, topless and fire lit.
Claudia ran, sobbing from the circle.
“Claudia!” Xochi called.
“Go on,” Dean said. “Go after her. I got this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go,” he said.
Xochi turned on her flashlight and ran after Claudia. Sam looked intently at Dean, silently asking him if he was really sure. He was. He didn’t meet his brother’s gaze, keeping his focus on the fake Xochi in front of him.
“That your best shot, dogboy?” Dean said, raising his eyebrows, defiant. “Because I’m still standing.” He took a step closer to Huehuecoyotl, bringing them nearly nose to nose. “You think I don’t know that I hurt Lisa? That I could have killed Ben? There isn’t a damn thing you can say to me that I don’t already torture myself over, a hundred times a day.”
Huehuecoyotl didn’t respond.
“And sure,” Dean continued, on a roll now. “I’d love to nail Xochi. I don’t think that’s exactly breaking news to anyone here, except maybe Claudia, so good job making a teenage girl cry. But you know what? Just because I want to nail Xochi doesn’t mean I will, and that has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about Lisa and Ben. So, whenever you’re done with your cute little puppet show, you let me know and then maybe we can get down to brass tacks and do some business. What do you say?”
Huehuecoyotl shifted again, first to a large black coyote and then to a handsome young Native American man with parallel scars on each cheek and heavy obsidian disks in his stretched earlobes.
“Why should I help you, hunter?” he asked. “And don’t say because the world will end. Your world will end, not mine.”
“Because it’ll be fun,” Dean replied.
THIRTY-SIX
Huehuecoyotl didn’t respond, he just looked intently at Dean. His black eyes shone in the firelight. Dean could feel Sam’s questioning gaze but he didn’t break eye contact with the trickster.
“If Teo and the Nagual succeed with their plan to piggyback the Star Demons into our world, it’ll be a straight-up massacre,” Dean began. “Now maybe that kind of thing is pretty entertaining to someone like you. But you know what’s even more entertaining than watching a massacre? Watching a war.”
Dean studied that stony, scarified face, searching for clues. Was it working? Was he getting through? It was impossible to tell.
“Think about it,” Dean continued. “How would you rather spend your pay-per-view dollars? On a solid, even match-up that you know is gonna go the distance, or a one-sided beat-down that’ll probably end in a first-round knockout? Just give us a fighting chance against these things and we’ll give that Clawed Butterfly bitch a run for her money. It’ll be must see T.V. That’s a promise.”
“I cannot cure the corrupted Borderwalker,” Huehuecoyotl said.
Dean forced his clenched fists to open, letting out a slow breath. Huehuecoyotl looked away into the distance, squinting against the smoke from the small fire.
“But I can help you find someone who can,” he said.
Dean knew full well that the trickster might be lying, but he finally felt like he had a foot in the door.
“I’m listening,” Dean said.
“I will tell you alone,” Huehuecoyotl said. “Tell the empty one to leave us.”
“Uh uh,” Sam said. “No way.”
“It’s okay, Sam,” Dean said.
“I don’t know...”
“Go on,” Dean said. “I’m good.”
Sam gave Dean a searching look, then nodded and left the circle.
“I’m all yours,” Dean said. “Let’s hear it.”
“I knew a woman once,” Huehuecoyotl told him. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Metzlicihuatl was her name. A midwife’s daughter. From the first time I saw her, I knew I had to have her. But once I took what I wanted, she wouldn’t let me go. She became the first Borderwalker. The mother of all the others.”
“You mean the Alpha?” Dean asked.
“Yes. The Alpha, as you say.” The trickster gave Dean a knowing look. “She doesn’t care that I broke her heart. She loves me to this day.”
Dean wasn’t about to let himself be needled when he was so close to what they needed.
“So you’re saying the Alpha Borderwalker has the power to cure as well as infect?”
“She still has the lump of white copal that I used to steal her heart. She wears it in a deerskin pouch around her neck. If you can convince her to give it you, you can use it to transform the corrupted Borderwalker back into an ordinary human. I cannot help you convince her, but I can help you call her to you.”
Huehuecoyotl put out one of his hands and a small ceramic flute took shape, solidifying out of the smoke. It was bright red with a bell-shaped cup at the base, decorated with a trio of bipedal coyotes dancing in a circle. He closed his fingers around the flute and then held it out to Dean.
“Play this flute,” he said. “Metzlicihuatl will hear it and come to you, thinking you are me. Fair warning, she will be angry when she finds she has been deceived. But you are the kind of man who is easily forgiven by women, aren’t you, Dean?”
“Where should I play it?” Dean asked, taking the flute. “Here?”
“Anywhere,” Huehuecoyotl replied. “She would cross oceans to be with me.”
“Thank you,” Dean said.
“Just make it worth my while,” the trickster said. “Put on a good show, hunter.”
“Will do,” Dean said. “We ain’t going down without a fight.”
“And if you win,” Huehuecoyotl said. “Will you keep on standing alone in the rain? Or will you come inside?”
Huehuecoyotl leaned close to whisper in Dean’s ear, shifting again as he moved. Shifting back to Xochi.
“Forgive yourself.”
The trickster turned and walked away into the desert, Xochi’s image fading slowly into smoky transparency before disappearing all together.
Dean found Sam, Claudia and Xochi standing together by the dirt bikes. He showed them the flute and explained everything that had happened.
“Find the Alpha Borderwalker,” Sam said. “Genius. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“We only have a couple of hours before the sun comes up,” Xochi said. “We don’t want to be out here when that happens. We should head back to the Rover and then find a place to catch a few hours of sleep. We can visit my friend in Chihuahua during the day and then summon the Alpha tomorrow night. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “I’m pretty beat.”
“We all are,” Xochi said.
Xochi carefully buried the fire and gathered up her ritual objects. Claudia was silent and stoic, waiting. Dean thought maybe he ought to talk to her, apologize or something, but he had absolutely no idea how to even start a conversation like that with a fifteen-year-old girl, so he just kept his mouth shut.
Sam got his dirt bike started and Claudia climbed on the back, strapping on her helmet. Sam hit the gas and took off down the trail. Xochi was about to mount up on the other when Dean stepped up next to her.
“I’m sorry about all that,” Dean said. “You know, before. Is Claudia okay?”
“She will be,” Xochi shrugged. “She’s young. Easily hurt but resilient.”
She was about to throw one leg over the bike seat, but Dean put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What?”
“I remember the way,” he said. “Let me drive the bike back to the Rover.”
“Why?”
“Honestly?” he said. “Because I don’t think I can take another lap dance like the one I got on the way out here. Have a little compassion, will ya? These are my only pants.”
She laughed, but she let him drive. They made it back to the Rover without incident.
Sam was the only one who wasn’t half asleep at that point so he drove while the rest of them dozed. When Dean woke up the sun was starting to rise and the Rover was parked in the lot of a Ramada in Chihuahua. Xochi and Claudia were still asleep in the back seat.
He got out of the Rover to stretch his aching body and spotted Sam coming out the door, two sets of hotel keys in his hand.
“Come on,” he called.
Dean was about to tap on the back window and wake the girls up when Claudia suddenly jolted upright, her movement startling Xochi. Claudia turned to Dean, hand flat against the window and her eyes flashing wide. Then wakeful awareness seemed to filter into her face and she took a deep breath, opening the back door and getting slowly to her feet.
“I saw her,” Claudia said. “I saw Elvia.”
Xochi got out of the Rover and came around to stand beside Dean.
“Tell us,” she said.
“She...” Claudia paused, frowning. “I think she escaped.”
Xochi threw a look of surprise in Dean’s direction.
“You need to remember everything,” she said. “Start at the beginning of your vision. Don’t leave out any details, no matter how small.”
“Okay,” Claudia said. “It’s just... well it’s kinda mixed up.”
“Go on,” Dean said.
“Well, first she was in a dark place, like inside a truck or something. She was... tied up. Bound somehow. Then, cops. Army guys, maybe? Guys in uniforms. There was some kind of nasty fight happening. Shooting and...” Claudia shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. “And in the chaos, Elvia broke loose and ran. But she’s... sticky. Like one of those poor birds you see on T.V. with the oil
all over their feathers. She’s too heavy to leave our world. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Xochi said. “That’s Teo’s magic, holding her down. Can you see where they are? What can she see?”
Claudia closed her eyes, remembering.
“It’s a not a major city. More like a town,” she said. “Real pretty and old-fashioned. Narrow, twisty streets. There’s a big church. Tan with a big red dome.”
Xochi shook her head.
“That could be anywhere,” she said. “Can you be more specific?”
“Elvia is hiding in some kind of catacombs,” Claudia said. “With dead bodies all around her. But... this is gonna sound weird.”
“Nothing sounds weird,” Xochi said.
“The bodies aren’t in tombs. They’re... It’s almost like they’re... on display. Like in a museum, standing up in these glass cases.”
Xochi’s eyes went wide.
“These bodies,” Xochi said. “Are they dried out, like skeletons covered in leathery, pale-brown skin?”
“Yeah,” Claudia said.
“Guanajuato,” Xochi said. “They are in Guanajuato.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “How long will it take us to get there from here?”
“If we drive straight through and don’t sleep?” Xochi asked. “Maybe twelve, fourteen hours.”
“Come on, man,” Dean said. “None of us are gonna be worth a damn if we don’t grab a few hours of real shut-eye. Plus we still need to see your friend who makes the silver ammo and have our little chat with the Alpha Borderwalker.”
“He’s right,” Xochi said. “But we can’t spare more than three or four hours at the most.”
“No problem,” Dean said. “That’s all I ever need.”
“I’ve already got us checked in here,” Sam said. “May as well take advantage. I don’t need to sleep, but I could sure use a shower.”
“Me too,” Xochi said. “A good hot shower.”
Their rooms were on the top floor. Sam had splurged on neighboring suites with an adjoining door. Xochi and Claudia took the one on the left and Sam unlocked the one on the right.
Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss Page 18