A Blood of Killers

by Gerard Houarner

  Osiel continued. “Like that Mossad agent they teamed you up with. He didn’t last very long, at all.”

  “You’re well informed.”

  “It is expected.”

  “I don’t like working with partners.”

  Max was surprised to discover the death squad pair had picked up on many of the hunters. Carlos passed between the two women, broke the arm of one, the knee of the other, in one silent sweeping storm leaving both in a weeping pile. Manny grinned at a young, tongue-flicking man, daring him to make a move. Bodyguards intervened, restraining the man before he could rise to the challenge, exposing him as a drug lord. The other festival-goers backed away, a few jeering, but most turning back to the celebration. Only a half-dozen remained to watch the knot of the drug lord and guards attempt a dignified retreat.

  The smallest of the children gathered around the two broken women and threw sugar skulls at them.

  “Lee seems to survive you,” Oz said, as if nothing had happened. “Lee is good at surviving.”

  “There is more to life than that,” Osiel said.

  “Yes”

  “More to life than death.”

  “Not to me.”

  “You need a teacher.”

  Laughter broke from its prison in Max, surprising him. The Beast pounced on a shadow, gnawed on stone. “Are you offering?”

  The Oz’s laughter sprang freely, like water bursting from a mountain’s rock face. “No. I was never much of a teacher. Maybe—”

  Max stopped. “Don’t. Delaying what will happen won’t make it easier.”

  Osiel kept moving in his circle around his territory. The German came down from a long swig of tequila and slowed, mouth open, his gaze skipping from one to the other. The death squad circled, nipping at the heels of predators with the teeth of a smile, the metal of muzzle and blade.

  “I like your boots,” Osiel said, over his shoulder.

  “They were bought for me to impress you and your associates,” Max said. “I don’t give a shit about them. You can cancel, if you want.” It wouldn’t matter. After all of this, he was still going to kill the great Oz. He just wouldn’t be tied to time.

  Osiel waved him on. The German passed Max and whispered, “Humor the crazy fuck, please. They’re all watching. It’s part of the show.”

  “What happens to you if I don’t fulfill the terms of the contract?” The German stepped back, a brief flare of hatred lighting his eyes. The tequila had soured and its scent clung to his every exhalation.

  Max was impressed by the life left in him. Nearly enough to tempt snuffing it out. He let the Beast move him, instead, so it could believe they were stalking the prey of Osiel rather than being led around by a leash.

  He caught up to the Oz and walked beside him as an equal, passing the catafalque’s wooden tower, built in steps, lurid kings and monsters as well as their subjects and victims dancing by the light of cooking fires. Holes in its flimsy frame had been covered by fabric fluttering in the slight breeze. Even the stylized creatures and skeletons painted on the cloth seemed to ripple with anticipation of blood on their fangs and claws. They seemed to reach for the milling peasants finishing the tower’s construction, for their brethren trapped on Osiel’s skin. Piles of kindling rested at the base; at a safe distance, jerry cans of gasoline.

  “It’s a catafalque,” the German said, with a slight slur and a thicker accent. “For the funeral. You’re invited, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t care,” Max said. He didn’t care if the German thought he was so ignorant that he didn’t know what the tower was called. He’d seen more of the world than most of his liaisons and contacts. His reputation made him popular, and popularity required travel.

  Osiel paused by an altar packed with the statuary of saints and candy skulls of many sizes, heavily decorated in bright frosted colors to reveal a treasure of smiles. A Black Madonna, with a Black Jesus on her lap, sat at the center, tall and stiff. Serene.

  The Oz picked up a small skull and offered it to Max. “From La Santisima Muerte,” he said. And more softly, “You should accept.”

  Max did, surprising himself again. Behind him, the German grunted. The Beast strained to catch the scent of poison or a hallucinogenic, but there seemed to be nothing more than sugar in his hand. He popped the skull into his mouth.

  “Good,” Oz said, and pointed further, to a pit in which a dozen men labored.

  When they came up on the work site, Oz laughed and said, “The map of Mictlan. So I won’t get lost. It’s been a while since I’ve been there”

  At Max’s feet lay a labyrinth set in the ground. The skulls of snakes, birds, rodents, cats and dogs, cows, bulls lined the walls, along with their skeletons. At the labyrinth’s heart, human bones and skulls defined the paths. A few of the laborers eyed the German and his bottle of tequila through the veil of their sweat.

  Oz knelt among the workers, pressed his hands into the earth, closed his eyes as if committing what he felt to memory. The men continued around him.

  Moments later, Osiel stood. “Nine layers, each darker than the one above, until the last.” He smiled at Max, coughed once, licked the blood that trickled from his corner of his mouth. “I miss my home.”

  Children came along and dropped marigold petals over the digging in a fluttering rain of blood red and gold. They laughed and ran away, and Osiel laughed with them as he got up.

  They continued their circuit, passing women dancing, their dresses dotted with spiders, owls and bats. Men kicked a tightly-wrapped, irregularly-shaped ball in a half-hearted attempt at a game Max did not recognize.

  Dogs gathered, barking, as a young girl ran up to Oz and offered him a slab of raw meat wrapped in bloody cloth. Oz bit, tore out a mouth full of flesh, offered the rest to Max as he chewed noisily, the fresh blood dribbling down his chin mingling with his own.

  The Beast blinded Max with its hunger, and before he knew it he was holding the bundle. His stomach growled. A dog humped his leg, while others leapt and nipped at his hands. He would have taken a bite, consumed the chunk, but something in the German’s cough, in Manny’s laugh, Carlos’ hard look, the little girl’s open-eyed wonder, made him throw the meat down.

  The dogs turned into a snarling, writhing mass of jaws and legs, fighting over the offering.

  He finally recognized the scent through the fog of his hunger: human flesh. The Beast stabbed him in the belly, forcing him to double-over for a moment along the line his demon’s sharp vengeance.

  But he wasn’t a child, taking candy skulls from an adult. He wasn’t a dog, accepting meat from his master’s hand.

  “I thought you were a man of appetites,” Osiel said.

  “I am. But they’re my own, not to share.”

  “We are poor people. We’re used to sharing.”

  “I was poor. I never did.”

  They finished the walk where they’d started, children flocking to the Oz as he picked up a satchel and passed out more skulls. The German finished the bottle and set it down. Manny watched the children with a grin. Carlos stared at the red-haired dog, a collie and terrier mix, who’d come down from the villa to sit at Osiel’s feet. Max counted the few predators left still hovering at the edge of the compound. They were turning away, like the day, letting night creep over the horizon. Like the workers putting down their tools, the hunters knew the time for their work was over. Another kind of time was coming, and they wanted no part of it. More bands and voices rose up in song to welcome the changing light and air. Food and drink flowed freely. Laughter, loud and broad and deep, like flood water rushing through an arroyo, swept through the encampment. Men and women danced naked. Children stopped playing to paint themselves as skeletons.

  Life blossomed beneath the emerging stars, the rising moon. The hunters drifted into twilight, occasionally glancing back at the Oz as if to fix him in their memory for the next time their paths would cross.

  When the candy skulls and children were gone, Osiel turned to Max a
nd said, “You and I, we will make a little trip to el otro lado tomorrow.”

  Max shook his head. “I just came from the States.”

  “I didn’t mean where you traveled from today. I meant the other side, where men like us come from.”

  “The business we have belongs here.”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  Osiel’s dismissal felt like a blow, sudden and hard. He’d killed men for less. The Beast coiled inside him, tight as a fist. “I could kill you now.”

  “Yes. But will you?” The Oz smiled down at a little girl who bumped into him because she couldn’t see out of the enormous skull, as large as the rest of her body, covering her head. He bent over and gently turned her by the shoulders so she could chase the children he’d just sent away.

  When Max didn’t answer, he continued. “No, you won’t. You’ve survived this long by learning your place alongside death. That’s why I asked for you. You know better.” He went down on one knee and scratched the red dog’s head vigorously with both hands. Tongue lolling, tail thumping the ground, the dog closed his eyes and surrendered to the Oz’s touch.

  Max didn’t understand Osiel’s reluctance. Didn’t care. There was only his mission to accomplish, his appetites to satisfy.

  Perhaps his employers had found a new way to torture him, and the Beast. Maybe he’d been assigned to Osiel as punishment.

  At last, he asked, “What are we waiting for?” He didn’t want an answer, only release.

  “Time.”

  Max shook his head again. Osiel dismissed the German with a wave of his hand, along with the death squad guards. The German walked back in the direction of the women dancing in skirts of spiders, owls and bats. Carlos and Manny drifted off, but not too far. Max was impressed by their loyalty. At their age, in this kind of atmosphere, he could not have done the same.

  The dog barked at the German’s retreat. Osiel had to turn his head away and put his face against the dog’s cheek to quiet him. “My blood runs back through the bones of this country,” Osiel said. “My blood is in the dust that blinds the eyes of its conquerors.”

  “You paid for me to make your blood run.”

  “What is between us is a choice. A necessary sacrifice. What was done here, that was slaughter.”

  “The slaughter was a long time ago,” Max said. “And it was nothing that hadn’t already been done. You killed and sacrificed your own kind long before anyone else came here.”

  Osiel stiffened.

  Max caught the Oz’s twitch of resentment. “Your conquest was the will of the strong breaking the weak.”

  Osiel grunted. The anger was real. He was no longer invisible. At last, the Beast found its prey.

  “We’re all savages, I suppose,” Osiel said, at last. “None more noble than the other. No matter what illusions comfort us.”

  Just another push, and Osiel might do something rash and release Max from the limits of the contract. The Beast had room in its belly for nothing but its target. “Your enemies wanted to settle their accounts with you today, but they were afraid. They didn’t know how weak you are.”

  Osiel’s pride flashed, but then his shoulders sagged, his head lowered. The red dog licked his face. From the depths of his resignation, one last plume of pride flowered. “There are always scores to settle, even as I die.”

  The target faded without fear or rage, love or sorrow.

  The Beast floundered like a fish hauled out of water and tossed on a ship’s deck. Max felt empty, the sharp edge of his purpose blunted. “Your funeral will settle a lot of scores.”

  “So it may. But the Day of the Dead is here. We remember our ancestors. Where we came from. Where our paths will take us.” Osiel looked to the villa while the dog licked his hand.

  A quiver in Osiel’s voice triggered the Beast’s attention. Not fear. Something large, and dark. A terrible emptiness without light or sustenance. A promise, not a threat, of suffering.

  The Beast quieted, suddenly catching the hint of danger in the talk of settling scores, as if the emptiness had illuminated a threatening landscape. Osiel was going someplace neither Max nor the Beast should want to go to.

  A trap.

  Max’s mind shifted and he viewed the retreating hunters in a different light. What if there really was a danger in dealing with this old man?

  Osiel had requested Max, specifically. His employers had approved. He’d been put in compromising positions before by the ever-shifting allegiances among his employers. Was a debt being settled? Had someone tired of Max’s methods and nature gained momentary control and approved a contract he could not survive?

  Had Max, in his travels, and with his attention focused on appeasing the appetites of his nature, committed acts to hurt this man? Had he given the Oz cause to remember, to nurse a need for vengeance, to wait for an appropriate moment when he’d have nothing more to lose, so he could take Max along with him on his death’s journey?

  Any number of scenarios could be unfolding. He needed to talk to the German.

  The Beast rallied with the opportunity to feast on pain. So quickly, it let go of fear and danger. Max struggled to concentrate on Osiel’s intentions.

  The German could wait until later.

  The red dog growled at Max, and Osiel’s efforts couldn’t distract him.

  “Why did you ask for me?” Max asked.

  “You are a brother.”

  “We’re nothing alike.”

  “Oh, I think we are. You keep all that you are inside of you, yes. Until it can’t be contained. And then the blood comes. And I,” he said, encompassing the compound with a sweep of the hand, “let what I am go. So there is always blood.” He put his face in the dog’s neck, nuzzling.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  The Oz looked up at Max, the dog’s red hair plastered across his face. “You can’t kill death. You can only change its appearance. Perhaps put it off. But never stop death. As you know.”

  Max put hands to hips and took the first step in a circle around Osiel. He had to move. Even with the dog erupting in another fit of barks, body trembling, nearly breaking free of Osiel’s hold, he had to move.

  Killing the dog might be enough to provoke a confrontation. “You talk about the past,” Max said. “About the future. As if any of that mattered right now. This moment.”

  “Aren’t we a fine pair, then,” the Oz said, then grinned. “All of time contained between the two of us.”

  “I don’t understand why you have to wait. Why we have to go somewhere else. Are you afraid your people will try to stop me? Avenge you? That would complicate things. But I can do what must be done and escape. There’ll be blood, but you don’t seem to mind that.”

  Osiel laughed, stood up. The red dog trotted around his legs in a circle counter to Max’s shuffling walk. A German shepherd and a Rottweiler mix came to investigate and sniff, but the red dog ignored them, intent on his work, snapping his head back and forth while he circled to keep watch on Max. “If you cut me down right now, they’d treat you like a hero. Well, except for the dogs. But I’m sure you can handle them. Sancho, here, you could break his neck before he gets his teeth into you, I’m sure. The rest, after a few bodies, they would get the message. But for the people, they’d probably make you feel like never leaving this place. You might have to massacre the whole lot to be free.”

  Osiel paused, watched Max intently.

  Max stopped. The Beast remained quiet, not interested in killing dogs.

  The Oz broke into laughter, taking deep breaths between rounds, shaking his head and bending over to gasp for breath. The red dog stopped, sat and stared at his master. The other dogs drifted off. A few revelers applauded and joined in the laughter, though at a distance they couldn’t know what the joke was.

  Neither did Max.

  “And that would not do,” Osiel said, when he’d regained his composure. “There is such a thing as too much sacrifice. Something my ancestors, as you pointed out, didn’t alwa
ys understand.” He gestured weakly, his hand barely rising and falling, and turned toward the villa.

  “Why did you ask for me to kill you?” Max asked, unwilling to let go. “Why not someone else?”

  “The way home is not easy. I can’t leave this world as an ordinary soul. I must be heroic. I’m too old to die in battle, and even in youth that was not my way. And I obviously can’t die giving birth. So I must sacrifice myself. Which is my way. But not just anyone can take my life. Only another priest in the house of death can accept the offer of my spirit.”

  Make sure you eat my heart, the voice inside Max said. It is my gift to you.

  As if he or the Beast needed the suggestion.

  Osiel walked up the rise. Max followed, after giving Manny and Carlos a sign to wait. The house appeared abandoned, and if it wasn’t, he was certain he could handle anything that might be waiting in its rooms. It had the look of a clean hunting ground.

  Sancho settled between them, ignoring Max.

  “I’ve followed your career,” Osiel said. “One of a great many watching you. You’re a fine instrument of death. But you need honing. Purpose.”

  “I have a purpose. Right now.”

  “Your purpose is not always death’s,” Osiel said, with a backward glance beneath a slight frown. “Don’t be insulted. You’re a great killer. Blessed. La Santisima Muerte would have your children.”

  It took Max a moment to realize he’d taken offense. He’d already lowered his stance and counted off the steps between himself and the target, taking into account the dog leaping at him when he made his charge. The Beast, at last, attended to the possibility of killing, though remained quiet, sullen.

  Death was always served. Sometimes quickly. Often, at a pace slow enough to suit any number of appetites. But only one purpose was served, in the end.

  Max saw no reason for him to be questioned by his victim.

  Still, he relaxed. It would be stupid to break now, having sacrificed, in Osiel’s words, so much, already. Discipline. His employers were always talking to him about discipline.