by Domino Finn
Beside him was the briefcase of money. I folded it closed and placed it and the remaining cash on the passenger seat.
The Columbian driver was a different story. He'd buckled up. He now crawled over the air bag onto the hood of his car, his nose broken and bloodied.
"Are you hurt?" asked the wraith.
I stared through the cloud of white smoke, dazed. "I've never felt more fucking awesome," I said. I blew hard and waved the drugs from my face, but there was no helping it. I was like the drug dealer version of Scrooge McDuck, swimming in my riches.
A siren blared in the distance. Police.
"We need to get out of here," I said.
The wraith nodded. "How do we go backward?"
I pushed to my knees. We'd rear-ended a hatchback and caused a four-car pileup. I slipped the van into reverse and the apparition punched it. Fast learner.
The van crashed into the maroon car again, sending the driver forward to join us inside. The wraith switched gears and hit the gas.
"Come mierda," said the Columbian, drawing a hunting knife. I picked up the nearest duffel bag as he lunged. His blade flashed and buried deep into the black fabric, spilling more powder. Before he could pull back and try again, I shoved the bag against him, forcing him off balance. With his weapon caught, he had no choice but to hug the bag.
Outside, in the sun, I couldn't have called the shadow into my fist like I did, but one thing about Econolines, they're dark and gloomy on the inside. I wrapped my fist in a glove of darkness and went at the bag like I was training for a heavyweight title.
In one punch, the Columbian found out what it was like to kiss asphalt at thirty miles per hour. The bag tumbled on the street and left a trail of powder in its wake. I considered keeping his friend's corpse for zombie-related purposes, but the damage from the assault rifle and the glass wasn't pretty. I hefted him from the van like so much garbage and slammed the back doors shut. Then I stomped to the front and took over the wheel. I think the Spaniard was disappointed.
We managed to slip the police. They got tied up with the accidents in our wake. The drug dealers wouldn't talk even if they weren't dead, but plenty of witnesses would describe a black van, once nondescript but now riddled with bullet holes and broken glass. It was time to get off the street.
Of course, things were never that simple. My cell phone rang. Normally I would've ignored the call, but it was a burner. No one knew my number except for my good friend Milena, and she wasn't talking to me ever since she'd discovered my dark past. Understandable, really. If this morning proved anything, it's that I was a walking time bomb.
On the other hand, Milena wasn't a woman I could put off. I'd been trying to get her to talk to me for months, always dropping my new number on voicemail whenever I ditched my old phone and picked up a new one. I checked the caller ID. Sure enough, it was her.
I answered and said, "I thought you forgot about me."
"Don't give me crap, Cisco. I need a favor."
"What—now?"
"Yes, now. It's my abuelo. Someone beat him up last night and I'm at the hospital with him."
I skidded the van to a stop. "Which hospital?"
"Jackson Memorial."
I surveyed the cartel van and rubbed my face. It was stupid to take a detour, but maybe she was opening up to me again. I didn't want to miss the chance to reconnect.
I flipped a U-ey and sped toward my friend and her grandfather. "Don't worry, Milena. I'm on my way."
Chapter 5
I strode down the bustling maze of hospital halls until I found the room. Milena sat at her grandfather's bedside. The old man's face was black and blue, his arm was bandaged, and he was hooked up to an oxygen mask.
"Hernan?" I said, leaning over him.
"He's sleeping," whispered Milena.
I froze when I saw her up close. She'd been crying, but wasn't anymore. Now she just looked worn out. At the same time, there was something in her face. Relief, I thought. She was happy to see me. I was happy to see her, but I didn't know how to say it.
"Milena, I'm—"
"Shut up, stupid." She clamped her arms around me and buried her face in my chest.
I wasn't sure what I was about to apologize for. Being a mindless slave of a vampire for ten years meant I'd done bad things, but Milena had known me before things went bad. She had to know who I truly was. I wanted to explain anyway. But she was right. It was stupid. Maybe shutting my mouth for once wasn't the wrong way to go. But I couldn't leave it at that.
"I've missed you," I told her. She drew her head away and looked into my eyes. She didn't say anything, but she smiled. That was good enough for me.
Milena's grandfather cleared his throat. "Did you bring me some café?" he asked in Spanish. He didn't speak very much English, so we all switched.
"What happened, Hernan?"
He frowned and looked away, so Milena answered for him. "Someone came to his house last night. They beat him up and left him on the kitchen floor. He was there all night. Can you believe that? Good thing I passed by extra early this morning or he would've been there longer."
The muscles on my forehead tightened. The old man had to be in his seventies. With the bruising and cold light, he looked more fragile than ever. "Who did this?" I asked.
Milena opened her mouth but Hernan waved her off.
"I don't want to be a bother," he said, his voice muffled by the mask. "Forget it."
"No way," I said. "This isn't on you at all. Just tell me what happened."
His face hardened for a moment. A little bit of the stubborn old man came out. But that persona shriveled under the glare of his granddaughter. I almost shriveled too. She was good at it. Hernan worked the oxygen mask away from his face with a sigh. "I don't want you to get hurt, Francisco."
"I'm not the one who's gonna get hurt."
He stiffened when he recognized my intent. I didn't think he was opposed to justice, per se, but maybe a tiny bit of my true nature leaked out. The black stain on my soul, forever a part of me. The part I couldn't show other people. I straightened up and tried to look like a man who didn't want anybody dead.
"I need to know," I insisted.
Hernan nodded. "A man came by the neighborhood last night. He visited your old house down the street."
My face darkened. This was about me. That's why Milena had called. Not for support. Not for friendship. But to fix something I broke. I let the old man tell his story.
"He was talking to the neighbors, trying to track you down, Francisco. I guess he heard my Milena was childhood friends with your sister and ended up at my door. He wanted to know if I'd seen you. I said no. He didn't believe me."
Milena squeezed his hand. "You always were an awful liar, abuelo."
"This is true," he said proudly. "They'll put it on my gravestone."
"Don't talk like that," she chided.
Hernan turned back to me. "This man knew I'd seen you and knocked me on the floor."
I clenched my jaw. No doubt this was about Connor Hatch. I'd been taking potshots at him for months without retaliation. I wasn't surprised he'd finally come at me. Except he was doing it through my friends. Just like I was hitting his drugs, he'd hit Hernan.
I'd been certain they were insulated. Milena was out of this. The one good thing about our fractured relationship was that she was safe away from me.
So much for that silver lining.
"He worked me pretty good," continued the old man. "I tried to hold out, but I couldn't do it. He was going to kill me."
Some punk beating up an old man didn't sit right with me. Connor was a gutless piece of shit who would do anything to preserve his power. "It's okay, Hernan. You shouldn't have lied to him."
He shrugged. "I admitted that I'd seen you. I said you came by looking for your parents, and I told you they were dead, and you left. That was it. I left out Milena. I said it was just me at the house and I saw you that one time and you left. He believed me."
"Ho
w do you know he believed you?"
The old man smiled. "He stopped punching."
I tried to return the smile. That's what he wanted. Hernan was a character for sure. A real sense of humor. For a man his age, he was taking this like a champ. But I couldn't. My stomach turned. I was the cause of this.
"It's close enough to the truth," added Milena. "What you told him. It's probably why he believed you. It's not like you knew where Cisco was, anyway."
I nodded. "You did good, Hernan. But I need you to tell me everything you remember. Did he say who sent him?"
He shook his head. "He didn't tell me anything. Not a thing."
"So tell me what you saw. Was he with anyone? Did you see a car? Was he wearing a uniform? What did he look like—South American?"
"No. A gringo."
Milena slapped his shoulder gently. "Abuelo. That's not a nice word."
"I'm sorry, darling. A white guy. Bald with a black beard. Very big. Not tall but wide. Like nothing could knock him over."
"We'll see about that," I said.
Hernan clutched my wrist. "He looked like a maniac, Francisco. He had green markings on his face."
"Paint?" I asked.
"No. A tattoo. Some kind of symbol. Like on the card."
I thought for a second. "What card?"
The old man pointed to Milena's purse. She pulled out a card and handed it to him. He thought over it before holding it out to me. "The bastard told me, if I ever saw you again, to give this to you."
I snatched it. The backside was colored with a plaid pattern like something you'd see on a playing card. The paper stock was thick and textured to stand up to wear, with just a bit of shine. I flipped it over and saw what could only be a magical rune inscribed on the plain white surface.
Hernan reached for his oxygen mask and Milena helped fit it around his mouth. After a long breath, he said, "I thought he was going to kill me."
I turned away. I didn't want either of them to see that dark side of me boiling out again. I walked to the window and took a few breaths myself.
Milena came up behind me and switched back to English. "Can you find him? Can you get the guy who did this?"
I waited a moment and said, "I need to. It's the only way to make sure he doesn't come back." I glanced at the strange rune on the card again.
"What does it mean?" she asked, half afraid of the answer.
I traced the symbol with my finger. "I have no idea."
Chapter 6
I didn't stay long. Not very neighborly, perhaps, but I was still technically mid heist. I had to stash the money, figure out what to do with the drugs, and dump the van, all without drawing the attention of the police or any number of underworld scumbags.
In the elevator, I pushed the button for the ground floor. Before the doors could slide shut, Milena jumped between them. When the door nipped her, she yelped a little the way ladies do. Then she turned around and kicked it to pay it back for embarrassing her. The whole thing was cute. When she finally allowed the doors to close, we were alone.
She had trouble meeting my eyes. Trouble speaking, too. "Sorry for being... you know... about... you know."
I smiled. "You have a way with words. It's like you conjured a painting in my head."
She smacked my shoulder. "You're really gonna be like that now?"
Now it was my turn to look down. "No. I'm sorry too, okay? A lot of really bad stuff happened. It's still happening. And it's all my fault."
"Don't say that, Cisco. You're trying to help. You're here now."
"Maybe I wouldn't need to be if I'd stayed dead."
She shook her head sullenly but didn't say anything. The elevator ding spared both of us. We weaved through the group waiting to ride up and stood listlessly.
"I'm supposed to be out of town," she said. "You know that? I don't work for a few days and was meeting friends in Key West. That's why I went to his house so early. The plan was to beat the traffic. I was just making sure he was stocked up before I left."
I nodded. I couldn't tell if she was trying to change the subject. I just wanted to get out of there.
"God," she said. "Could you imagine if this had happened after I left?"
I winced. There wasn't any need to imagine. The world was bad enough as it was. There wasn't any need for the guilt I was feeling either. But there it was. That's life sometimes.
"I'll get him," I said forcefully. It was meant to be reassuring but came out wrong. She nodded. I smiled weakly and broke away a little too fast, rushing down the hall toward the hospital entrance. Her sandals clacked against the floor as she raced to catch me.
"Hold up," she said. I paused. She rounded to face me. "I've been thinking about this lately. A lot. And I thought it was so dumb to blame you for things you did while you were dead. All this other trouble going on, all these other shady deals, most of it started far away from you, Cisco. Despite the way you carry on, you're not the center of the world."
"You sure about that?" I asked with a smirk. Milena had a way of taking you down a peg but making you feel good about it.
Honestly, hearing her say that took a load off my soul. It was still black, mind you, but having Milena be able to look at me again made the world keep turning.
"Thanks," I said. "I mean that. I'll find out who did this to Hernan, and not just because he did it to get to me."
She nodded with her hands clasped behind her back. "I know."
I took one last look at her, soaking it up, hoping she would always look at me with those eyes. Then I went out the automatic double doors.
I was halfway across the parking lot when I noticed her sandals still clacking away. I turned to see what she wanted but she just matched my gait. I'm a little slow so I nearly made it to the van before realizing what was going on.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, not passive-aggressive at all.
"I'm going with you."
I stopped. "No, no, no. You heard the old man. This guy doesn't know about you. You're staying out of this."
She snickered right in my face like I was bombing a stand-up routine. "Not a chance, Cisco. I told you I have some time off. I can't go to the Keys anymore. You think I'm capable of doing anything else except worry about this?"
"But—" I wasn't sure what to say without sounding like a broken record. We both knew I'd do the same thing in her position.
"Don't think too hard," she said. "Just go with it. Remember how I handled myself during that ghost attack?"
"Right. The poltergeist. Not too shabby."
She arched her eyebrow and shifted her head to the side. "Not too shabby? You couldn't have boosted that garbage truck without me. Besides, how many times have I helped you out with car trouble? I rode with my abuelo in the ambulance here. My car's at his house where I found him. Now it's my turn to ask for a ride."
A siren faded in from the distance, approaching fast. I turned my back to it and lowered my head. An ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance. I sighed. Every second I delayed increased my risk. I knew talking Milena off this would be time consuming, if it was possible at all.
"Fine," I said, leading her to the beat-up van. I unlocked the passenger door first and the wraith materialized in the seat.
"Is this wise?" asked the Spaniard.
"Shotgun," called Milena as I walked around to my door. We both climbed in and she shooed the apparition away with her hand. "Sorry, señor, but you have to sit in the back with all the—Cisco, why is the back of this van covered in cocaine?"
I checked and she was right. A veneer of fine white powder dusted the bags, floor, and shelves of the Econoline.
"Remember how you said all the bad things I did when I was dead didn't count?"
She nodded.
"Well, I'm still doing bad things. Besides, why didn't you assume I was selling churros out of the van and that was powdered sugar?"
"I work in a strip club, remember? Believe it or not, I've seen the stuff once or twice."
>
"Shocking." I started the engine and the Spaniard chose to vanish rather than sulk in the back. I made it two blocks before she asked a follow-up question, which must've been some kind of record considering the circumstances.
"You're a drug dealer now?"
"Why? Do you know someone looking to pick up two-hundred keys of coke?" I remembered the bag I'd lost. "Make that one-fifty."
I'll spare you from describing her glare.
"No," I relented. "I'm not a drug dealer. It's the guy I'm going after. The one mixed up in dirty Miami politics and a secret wizard cartel and the leader of the now-defunct Covey. Not to mention being responsible for, oh, I don't know, the death of a certain Cisco Suarez."
She took the news in stride. "You still talk about yourself in the third person?"
"Occasionally. For effect."
"Well, stop it."
"Cisco will take it under advisement."
I stopped at a green light and waved an old man with a cart to my window. She frowned. "What are you doing?"
"All this talk of churros is making me hungry."
She laughed. "No one's talking about churros except you."
The man poured at least a cup of sugar into a small paper bag filled with freshly fried curls of dough, shook it up, and held it to me.
"One dollar," he said.
I felt at my pockets. Then leaned over and peeled a fresh hundred from a nearby brick. I traded the bill for the bag and drove on.
We munched deep-fried chunks of heaven, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, steaming just short of burning my mouth. Eventually, Milena realized I wasn't driving her home.
"Wait a minute. We're going the wrong way."
"No, we're not. This van is hot and full of drugs. I need to get it out of sight as soon as possible. I can give you a ride home in my pickup."
"Oh, sure, but we can make a pit stop for churros."
I shrugged. "Priorities."
Chapter 7
Getting into the Everglades on Tamiami Trail, I thought I noticed a car following us. I pulled over to a patch of long grass and waited. A black car with dark tints raced past without incident. I waited a bit longer but decided my mind was playing tricks on me and kept going. The road was now clear, at any rate.