by Logan Fox
She turned her head, feeling a pull as insubstantial as mist, but as fervent as a hurricane.
Her father watched her from a few feet away. One arm lay outstretched toward her, fingers curled toward the hangar’s ceiling. A finger twitched, and her eyes shot to her father’s face. His eyes were open, but they looked lifeless.
Until he blinked.
His mouth moved. And some inane understanding came over her. Perhaps it was just that she’d seen him say that same phrase so many times, or perhaps there was a spirit in the room. Maybe Santa Muerte had finally come to her aide.
“Mi corazon,” she whispered.
Zachary bent down, finally taking his boot from her bruised and torn hand. He grabbed her chin, tipping her face up until her neck strained at the angle. “Again,” he commanded.
His brown eyes were the color of mud. Something malicious gleamed in their depths, and she knew in that moment that she would never, ever survive finding out what it was.
“Mi. Corazon.” She enunciated each word as perfectly as she could. She tried to swallow, couldn’t and began, “M—I—C—”
Zachary cut her off with a murmured, “My heart. Muchos gracias.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.
She spat at him then, and wished she’d done it sooner. He watched her for a moment, and used that same thumb to rub that gob of spit off his face.
Then he sucked it off with such a look of pleasure that her stomach turned and threatened to empty itself again.
“We shall meet again, my heart,” Zachary murmured. “In the place where Santa Muerte sends her sheep.” He hoisted the Santa Muerte pendant, twiddling it from side to side.
“You serve the devil!” she yelled. “La Flaca would never allow you to worship her.”
Zachary laughed, giving his thumb another suck as he rose to his feet. “I am the devil, mi corazon.” Then his expression became that vapid mask again. “Santa Muerte serves me.”
Zachary towered over her. Pendant in hand, he turned at the sound of three successive gunshots. That marble-like mask of his crumbled the same instant someone yelled, “No!”
A snarl contorted his face.
He looked back at her, red spots on his cheeks and his lips white.
“You’ve just started a war, mi corazon,” Zachary whispered furiously. “Tell El Guapo he’s no longer safe in his little nest.”
And then a gleaming cowboy boot came swinging for her face. She turned her head, tried lifting her arm, but her body was slow and weak. The boot brushed aside her arm and its sharp tip crashed into the side of her face.
El Lobo’s darkness swarmed over her, consuming everything that she was.
And, in the distance, a robed figure watched. Unmoving. Offering no aide.
So he was the devil. Why else would Santa Muerte just stand aside?
57
Three bloody teeth
Angel was down. Cora had taken care of the red-head with a shot that seemed to have surprised everyone in the hangar. And now Finn was beating seven shades of shit out of the Latino guy.
Lars turned his gun on El Lobo.
Zachary must have realized the odds weren’t in his favor anymore, because he was backing up toward the back of the hangar, a snarl on his face.
And then Cora did the most idiotic thing he’d ever seen. She went after fucking El Lobo.
“Fuck!” Lars took aim, and fired. But in that same instant, Zachary took a step forward, and his shot went wild.
Turned out, Cora hadn’t been going for Mr Fucking West. Oh no. She was after the pendant.
But Zachary brought his hand down on Cora’s hand. Twisted it a little.
Lars moved forward, sincerely hoping that Finn was keeping the Latino guy occupied so he wouldn’t get a shot to the back.
He took aim. Fired.
But, as if he’d had some kind of goddamn premonition, Zachary crouched. Lars’s bullet shot through the side of the hangar instead of Zachary’s face.
“Motherfuck!” Lars yelled. But even that sound didn’t pull Zachary’s attention.
He strode closer still, aimed, fired.
Zachary stood, lips moving as if he was speaking to Cora.
The man had a fucking guardian angel; his third shot went wild.
His fourth shot never happened, because he’d run out of bullets.
Grimacing, Lars surged forward.
Let him dodge a fist in the face.
That fancy fucking boot of Zachary’s came around and slammed into Cora’s head. She went down, laying there like a dead thing. He would have run to check her, but Zachary was backing up toward the shipping container.
Was there a space portal in there or something? Lars sped up but, before he could reach him, Zachary threw open a small door built into the back of the hangar and a rectangle of light swallowed him. And then he closed the door behind, giving Lars a vaguely fascinated smile a second before that slit of light disappeared.
Lars banged into the door, making that whole wall of the hangar reverberate. He slammed his palm against the door, and fumbled with the handle.
But it refused to open.
Not a space portal, but maybe a portal back to hell. Spinning around, Lars ran to Cora’s side. When he touched her, she jerked and came to with a gurgling moan. She turned to him, a shaking hand lifting to her face where Zachary had kicked her.
Blood coated her chin. It dribbled down her throat and between her breasts as she struggled onto her ass.
“You look like shit, bunny,” Lars murmured.
Cora laughed, choked, and retched. But what came up wasn’t puke and stomach acid. She spat a mouthful of blood into her cupped palm, and when that had run through her quivering fingers and splatted on the floor, it left behind two blood-coated teeth.
She laughed again, and the sound quickly turned hysterical.
“Cora,” Lars said carefully, reaching for her.
She didn’t seem to notice. She used her other hand to dig in her mouth, and when those blood-stained fingers came back, she was holding onto a third tooth.
Lars got to his feet. Took a step back. And then tried to force the sound of Cora’s maniacal laughter from his mind as he turned to look for Milo.
But that horrid sound chased him.
Had she never lost a tooth before? Granted losing three at the same time had to hurt like hell, but she didn’t seem to be in pain, despite the fact she looked like she’d been halfway through a meat grinder before the person operating it realized she wasn’t a sheep.
Milo was still busy slamming the Latino’s head into the concrete.
“Milo.”
No response.
Lars hurried over and tried to get Milo off the dead guy with a yelled, “Milo, stop!”
Cora retched again, and this time it sounded like she did empty her stomach. Lars glanced over his shoulder. She stared across the concrete at Milo, face too pale and jaw trembling.
“Fuck my life,” Lars whispered unsteadily. “Fuck my fucking life.”
Jesus, was he next to lose his fucking mind?
He finally got Milo up. The man staggered away like a drunk, wiping at his face. He looked like Carrie had when they’d dumped that bucket of pig’s blood on her. Well, not quite as bad, but—
From outside, came the growl of a car engine. Engines. Plenty of them. Revved to the max.
Someone was in a hurry to get to them.
“Go, go, go!” he yelled. He dragged Milo behind him, as much as he could with a guy weighing far north of two hundred, and managed to grab Cora by the back of her shirt as he passed.
She fought him—because why the fuck not?—and tugged herself free. Then she half-crawled, half-scrambled to her father’s limp body.
“He’s gone, Cora!”
“No! Papá!” She grabbed Tony Swan by the lapels of what might have been a dress shirt a week ago, and dragged him into her lap.
Lars gritted his teeth, hesitating between getting Milo out the door—t
he man had gone into a catatonic state judging from his vacant eyes and parted lips—or shoving him in the direction of that secret little door and hoping the oaf could remember how his legs worked while he grabbed Cora.
Angel took the decision from him.
“Now you wake up?” Lars yelled as the young man limped over to Cora, grabbed her by the arms, and hoisted her to her feet.
She screamed at Angel, fighting him to try and reach her father.
“He’s dead!” Angel said urgently. “Dead. Like us if we don’t run.”
But she was a blubbering mess.
They weren’t going to make it. Outside, car doors slammed. Javier’s men—he had no doubt that’s who they were—wouldn’t know which hangar they were in, but if Cora kept screaming—
Angel twisted her in his arms and slapped her. Luckily, on a different cheek to the one where Zachary had kicked her. She snapped her head back, gaping at him. And then he slapped her again.
“Run!” he yelled as he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him.
Lars bundled Milo through the back door, and cast a glance at the hangar’s gaping entrance. No one yet, but he could hear feet.
His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. He saw the quivering IT guy still huddled on the floor, hands over his head, weeping.
Well, he couldn’t save the whole fucking world, now could he?
He ran outside. Angel hobbled out behind, dragging a shell-shocked Cora after him.
The hangar had been built at the base of a small rise. Lars pulled Milo up the slope, and then let him tumble down the other side, hoping the idiot would wake up when he hit the bottom.
Angel and Cora followed, both scrambling to stay upright on the slope. They’d parked the stolen sedan on the other side of the abandoned airport; there no way to get it without crossing paths with Javier’s men. They’d have to move on foot until they were in the clear.
Lars dragged Milo to his feet, and swiped his hands over the man’s face.
Milo blinked at him, and then frowned. “Cora!” He turned, searching until he found her.
Lars felt his shoulders slump when he spotted Angel leading her down the slope.
“She’s alive. We all are, thanks for caring.”
Milo glanced back at him, and then lifted trembling, blood stained hands.
“Yeah, you lost it again. But let’s leave the psychobabble for later. We got company.”
This time, Milo followed him when Lars ran forward. Then he realized Angel and Cora were lagging far behind and punched Milo in the shoulder.
“Get her,” Lars growled, as he turned and headed back for the injured two of their pack.
Angel put his hands up when Lars ran at him, but he fought back the guy’s feeble protests and scooped him off the ground. He was almost on a height with Cora, and lithe to boot, so he didn’t weigh much more than the girl. Milo grabbed Cora, and together they headed for the shelter of a nearby cluster of trees.
From there, they’d have to try and pick their way through the wilderness without being spotted by Javier’s men.
Lars set Angel down, and grimaced at the guy when he opened his mouth to speak. He lifted a finger, breathed hard, and said, “Not a fucking word.” Then he pointed between Cora—who Milo had just set down beside Angel—and the Latino guy. He wheezed a little before he could say, “Not from either of you idiots.”
58
The Elegance
Finn’s body ached like he’d been hit with a car. At least, this was how he’d imagine it feeling. The only sounds were the furtive movements of nocturnal animals and the thud-scrape of his and Lar’s boots through the desiccated foliage.
He’d have stopped walking a mile back already, convinced that everything he had to give was gone.
And then Lars had spotted the suggestion of lights through the trees. Nothing more than a distant twinkle, but it was all he needed to keep going.
“Hey, let me try walking,” Cora said, slurring due to how her cheek, and no doubt the inside of her mouth, had swollen. Lars had said something about Zachary doing that, but neither of them would ‘fess up about how it had happened.
He hadn’t seen; he’d been too preoccupied.
A desperate shove sent that thought far away. The last thing he needed now were those vignettes of violence that had played non-stop in his head for the past hour. Right now, he had to concentrate on keeping one foot in front of the other.
“Hope to fucking god that place has food,” Lars muttered beside him. Then, with a grunt, he set Angel down. “I’m done, buddy. You’re gonna have to drag yourself the rest of the way.”
“Finn.”
He looked down at Cora. Luckily, in the dark, he couldn’t see much of her face. But when it had still been light enough to see, there’d been swelling on the left side of her face. Drying blood on her chin and throat.
His muscles pleaded with him to listen to her, and after another few steps, he caved in and set her down. She slung her arm around his waist and together they hobbled forward.
Angel was having more trouble. Lars stood back, watching Angel as he tried to drag his wounded leg behind him. They’d applied a hasty tourniquet—Lars’s belt—and that seemed to have slowed the bleeding, but his jeans were still black with spent blood, and the amount of it worried Finn.
“Fuck my life,” Lars said under his breath, and went to prop Angel up on the one side. It meant the tall man had to stoop, and he threw Finn a scathing glare as if he and Angel’s height discrepancy was something Finn was personally responsible for.
The source of the twinkling lights came into sight a few minutes later. A gas station and, peeking out behind it, something that could have been a motel.
“Ah, Jesus,” Lars murmured reverentially.
The gas station’s signboard illuminated their path now.
“You’ll have to book us in,” Finn said. Of the four of them, Lars merely looked as if he’d had a roll in the dust. “You got cash?”
Lars rummaged awkwardly in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flashed Finn a smile so wide his teeth threw back a splinter of light. “Got plastic.”
“We’ll keep out of sight. You let us know when it’s clear.
They circled around so they wouldn’t get in sight of anyone working the register—god knew they had to look like the survivors of some b-rated horror movie.
Finn jostled Angel from Lars’s grip and helped him and Cora to a nearby stand of scraggly trees. Lars gave him a mock salute, scanned the motel’s near-empty lot, and hurried over the parking area toward the reception.
‘The Elegance’, Finn read on the motel’s signboard.
That name stuck with him for some reason, and not just because the motel was anything but elegant.
Then he thought of the botched accident the night he’d met Cora. The first time he’d touched her, trying to find a pulse. His body sagging when he’d finally found one.
The man who’d shot Jackson in the back and then nearly gotten away with Cora.
The card in his pocket.
‘The Elegance’, with its shitty print.
It could have been coincidence, but he believed in those as much as he believed in the fucking Easter Bunny.
But what choice did they have?
The way Cora stood beside him, her breath buffeting his bare arm. And with Angel pressed to his other side, they created a warm cocoon around him.
Which was fucking perfect, because he’d never been so cold in his life.
Lars came out of the reception room a few minutes later, did another casual scan of the parking lot as he moved across it, and went to stand in front of door twelve. Then he looked around again, and lifted his chin to where Finn huddled with the others.
Finn hoisted Cora and Angel to a stand, and they limped and hobbled over the parking lot, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Lars had already opened the door, and Finn nearly fell through the doorway, so eager was he to get inside.
/> Lars gave him a bemused smile. “Guy behind the counter’s so high, I could’ve taken a room key and he wouldn’t have noticed.”
“We can’t stay here,” Finn said, and that wiped the mirth right off Lars’s face.
“You really have lost it, haven’t you?” Lars waved a hand that took in him, Cora, and Angel. “Perchance you’d like to look in the fucking mirror?”
“This place—” Finn paused and then gave his head a shake. Words rattled out of him, probably making no sense. “The guys at the blockade. That night we left Swan Manor.”
Lars crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t say anything.
“One of them had a card. This place. A card for this motel.”
“It’s probably the only motel in town,” Lars said dryly. He ripped his phone from his pocket, showing Finn the dead screen. “Which I would have confirmed, had I not run out of battery life about seven hours ago.”
“It’s not a coincidence.”
“Probably not,” Lars agreed with a sour twist to his mouth. “But I don’t give a fuck. That guy behind the counter wouldn’t be able to pick me from a police lineup. Even if I was the only guy in the fucking line up. Got it?” Lars walked over to the closest bed and sat down with a massive sigh. “Now, how we going to decide who gets to shower first?”
59
Interesting relatives
Angel won the toss, and he limped off to the tiny bathroom and closed the door hard behind him.
“Something I said?” Lars shouted after him, and then lifted his hands when Milo shot him an accusing stare. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Forgot this place is crawling with cartel.”
Milo’s eyebrows lowered at the comment. He went into the small kitchenette and began rinsing his face in the basin. Good thing too—it looked like he was wearing a shitty Halloween getup with all that dried blood flaking from his face. Then, without a word to either of them, Milo went to the far corner of the room, wedged himself in between the wall and the side of the single bed, and put his head in his arms like he was going to catch a quick forty before they had to be on the move again.