“Then we go in after him.”
“Did Culebra tell you—?”
“That Ramon doesn’t trust me? Yes. It’s not a big surprise, though. The story of my coming along out of friendship for Culebra was a little thin. He may think I’m here solely to bust him.”
“There’s more, too. Maria wasn’t going to let me follow last night. Did Culebra tell you that, too?”
He looks surprised. “No. Didn’t have much time alone without Ramon. Did she try to stop you?”
“With a big shotgun.”
He looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Is she still breathing?”
“Of course she is. I just incapacitated her. Gabriella would have freed her as soon as the girl woke up. I didn’t like some of the things Maria was saying. I get the feeling Ramon has a bigger agenda than he’s letting on.”
Before Max can respond, I catch a sound approaching through the brush, rapid footsteps coming toward us.
I hold up a hand for Max to be quiet.
More than two sets of footsteps.
I jump up, startling Adelita into jumping up, too.
Max is on his feet, gun drawn. “What is it?”
I grab Adelita’s hand, force it into Max’s. “Get her out of here. I’ll hold them off.”
“Them? You’re sure it’s not Culebra and Ramon?”
“Not unless they’ve grown a dozen more pairs of legs.”
Adelita pulls free of Max, stumbles to my side. I look over her head to Max. “Get her out of here. Get to the Jeep, take her across the border. If they catch her again, they’ll kill her.”
Max doesn’t hesitate even for a moment. He scoops Adelita into his arms. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do you still have your cell?”
“Turned it off. I don’t think I have much battery life left.”
“I should get back to the river in six hours.” He looks at his watch. “Turn it on at eight a.m. I can trace you.”
Adelita is staring at me with the blank-eyed look of a wounded animal. She looks like a child in Max’s arms. I stroke her hair. “You will be safe. You can’t stay here. The men from the village are coming.”
She closes her eyes for an instant, then releases a long slow breath as if the fight has left her. Max tightens his arms around her. He nods just once to me and in the next moment, the two are gone.
CHAPTER 32
MAX MOVES ALMOST AS SILENTLY AS I DO through the brush. In a minute, all I hear are the approaching footsteps of what I guess to be a dozen men. I grab Max’s duffel and head back toward the rocks and the burned-out truck.
I do nothing to hide my tracks. I want whoever is coming to find an easy trail to follow. One set of footprints. I want them to come after me.
It takes me far less time to reach the rocks than it will for those following. Gives me time to find a vantage point to use as lookout. While I wait, I open Max’s bag of tricks.
I was wrong. He doesn’t have a small arsenal inside, he has a big arsenal inside. Grenades, flares, a couple of handguns, a small case with a disassembled rifle and a sniper’s scope.
Boy Scout, indeed. Prepared to earn a murder badge.
In the side pouches are several more of those protein bars and the last two bottles of water.
I chug half of one, splash water onto the handkerchief and try again to scrub at my face. I can’t imagine how I appeared to Adelita—my face and clothes so soaked in blood.
Maybe the fact that it was one of her tormentor’s blood made it less horrific.
From what I gather from the sounds, the men have reached the place where Ramon, Culebra and Max stayed the night. I listen intently but the men don’t appear to be talking. They must be a well-trained gang of thugs, not wanting to give away their location. I imagine them searching the ground, finding the discarded wrappers and the empty water bottles. Now comes the tricky part.
Will they see where Max and I found Adelita hiding in the thicket, or will my more obvious tracks draw them away?
In a moment, I have my answer. They start in my direction.
Good.
A glance at my watch.
All I have to do now is keep them occupied for eight hours.
I wait until they reach the side of the road. I want to see who is leading the hunting party. They gather and stop in the cover of brush, whispering and pointing toward the rocks, the beams of a half dozen LED flashlights crisscrossing in front of them.
Then they step into the road.
It’s no surprise when I recognize the man in front, or when I hear his familiar voice call out.
“Come on out, Max,” Ramon says. “We have Culebra. It will go easier on both of you if you come out now.”
He doesn’t mention me. Either he hasn’t yet been in contact with Maria or he doesn’t want to let Max know that I’ve followed.
I consider my options. I could pick them off one by one with the rifle in Max’s bag.
No. Better to lead them on a merry chase away from the village, give Max more time to get away.
One thing I can do, though. Finish the job I started this morning.
I grab one of the grenades. Pull the pin. Toss it onto the burned-out bed of the truck.
The flash of the grenade flying through the air is caught by the searching flashlights. The men dive back into the brush.
The grenade explodes, flinging bits of wood from the truck’s side panels and charred bodies in a wide arc and reigniting the fuel that was left in the gas tank.
Now not even Horatio Caine could piece together what’s left.
A cry goes up from the group. Excited exclamations in Spanish. Evidently a piece of wood from the truck flew straight into one of the men. He staggers out into the road, flanked on either side by two buddies trying to drag him back into the brush. He’s fighting them. There’s a long, slender splinter no wider than an arrow projecting from his chest in front and out his back. The two trying to get him out of the road give up quickly and leave him to take cover again. The wounded man makes it no more than three or four steps before he collapses.
I don’t know how he keeps going but he raises himself onto his knees, grasps the wooden spear with two hands and pulls.
His scream hangs in the air longer than it takes the blood to drain from his body.
I watch the man die, feeling nothing, my mind a blank slate. No. That isn’t entirely true. I do have a thought.
One down . . .
CHAPTER 33
THERE’S MORE MURMURING GOING ON BEHIND the cover of brush at the side of the road. The gist seems to be an argument between the men who want to continue after Max (or who they think is Max) and the ones who think they should go back for reinforcements.
Ramon is clear what he wants to do. I hear him arguing that it’s only one man for god’s sake. But the counterargument is pretty compelling.
It’s one of their own lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the road.
I don’t wait to see who’s going to win. I grab the duffel and start running away from the rocks and in a direction away from the village. If Ramon wins the argument, I want to leave a trail for him to follow. Tracks and when the ground gets rocky, small branches scattered along the way. I want it to look like a man running for his life.
After about fifteen minutes, I stop to listen.
I don’t hear anything.
Shit.
They aren’t following. My plan to get them going in the wrong direction so I could double back to the village isn’t working. I guess the fear that Max had more grenades in that duffel convinced them they needed to amp up the firepower, too.
Damn it. At least it gives Max and Adelita more time to get away.
I backtrack along my own trail, this time not crossing back into the brush, but continuing along the road, careful to keep out of sight. It doesn’t take long to overtake Ramon and his gang. Ramon is once more in the lead but he walks like a man rigid with anger that he couldn’t convince the others to follow him after Max.
They’re moving along the road, on the opposite side from me. To a man, they keep swiveling their heads and flashlights back the way they’ve come, on alert for an ambush from behind.
I pick up speed. I can easily beat them to the village. If I’m lucky, I can reach out to Culebra, find out where they’re holding him, cut him loose before Ramon makes it back. One vampire can outrun an army of men.
And I do. I reach the outskirts of the village in minutes. It’s very quiet, though something is different from the first time I approached the village. A lookout is posted near the well. He’s in the shadows, but the glowing tip of a cigarette gives him away. I make my way around him soundlessly to the shack where I saw Adelita and the girls.
There’s a guard here now, too. Squatting down with his back against the wall of the shack, rifle resting on his lap. I send out a mental probe.
Culebra?
I’m here.
He doesn’t sound hurt or scared. He sounds pissed. What happened?
Fucking Ramon. Coldcocked me as soon as we got to the village.
How’d he do that? I thought you were suspicious of him?
Not suspicious enough, obviously. Or on my guard the way I should have been. Where are you?
About fifty feet from the shack, in some bushes.
Is Max with you? He didn’t get Max, too, did he?
No. I give him a Reader’s Digest version of what happened. About how I sent him away with Adelita so she would be safe. He’s going to come back, but it will be eight hours at least.
I let a minute go by before asking. I know there are more girls. Are they with you?
No. The anger is back, radiating through his thoughts. They moved them to another shack. He’s with them.
Santiago?
Not the Santiago we’re after. His bastard brother, Luis.
Who the hell is Luis?
A decoy. Culebra’s mind radiates dark anger. A trap set by Ramon.
Why? What happened to protecting his family?
He is protecting his family. Santiago made him a deal he couldn’t refuse. Me in exchange for the life of his wife and daughter.
Santiago wants you? After all this time? You must have really pissed him off.
When Culebra doesn’t answer right away, I get the feeling there’s something more he’s hiding about his past. Something he wants to keep hidden. There’ll be time to find out what it is later.
So, shape-shift. Get yourself out of there. The men heading back for the village will leave again to go after Max. I’ve laid a false trail. When Max gets back, we’ll go in after the girls. I’m not leaving them. I saw what they did to Adelita.
Culebra remains shut down. Whether he’s considering what I said or coming up with his own plan isn’t coming through. Finally he says, I’m staying put. At least for the time being. I might pick up something from Luis or the guards that gives us an idea where his brother is. We’ve got nothing but time until Max gets back anyway. May as well see if I can learn something useful.
What if Ramon comes back and decides to kill you?
Culebra’s dry chuckle resonates in his head, transmits itself to me.
Then I shape-shift and bite his ass.
* * *
NOTHING FOR ME TO DO NOW BUT WAIT. I TRUDGE back to the same spot I occupied this morning—well, yesterday morning actually—and crawl back inside my little burrow. In thirty minutes I hear Ramon and his troops come into the village. The men disperse, Ramon barking a sharp order that they have fifteen minutes to get supplies and get their asses back to the well. I watch to see if he’s going to the shack where Culebra is being held, but he goes instead to where Culebra said Luis Santiago and the girls were hiding.
The guard snaps to attention when Ramon approaches. Ramon ignores him and pushes open the door to stalk inside. His anger is apparent and the guard doesn’t challenge or question him—in fact he doesn’t even greet him, just ducks out of Ramon’s way.
I can’t hear what’s being said behind the door Ramon slammed on his way inside. Gives me a chance to decide what I’m doing next.
Culebra?
Yes.
When the men start out again, I’m going to follow them for a while. Make sure they pick the trail I laid and not Max’s. He’s gotten a pretty good head start but hopefully they’re not adding a bloodhound to their posse.
Culebra’s rasping chuckle comes through once again. Haven’t seen any bloodhounds around.
Ramon appears just then and heads for Culebra’s shack.
Uh-oh, I say. Ramon is on the way.
I feel it as Culebra’s thoughts turn dark and dangerous. Stay tuned in, he says. I’ll try to find out what he has planned.
Ramon heads for the shack, his gait as stiff and angry as it was before. He greets this guard with as much arrogance as he did the other, too.
“Mueve el culo,” he barks. Move your ass.
The guard jumps to his feet, stands at attention. But he needn’t have bothered. Ramon whips past him without a backward glance.
In a moment, Culebra has opened a mental conduit that allows me to hear what is going on. Ramon must have struck Culebra because a wave of pain colors his thoughts bloodred. Ramon and he are talking in Spanish, but Culebra’s interpretation comes through to me in English. It’s a trick of this telepathy thing. No language barriers.
I don’t know where Max would go. Or why he left.
You are lying.
Another gasp from Culebra. And another. Ramon keeps hitting him until I feel Culebra’s thoughts grow dim. I’m just about to jump up and pull him out of there when Culebra sends me a message.
Don’t. Make sure they follow the false trail. Ramon won’t kill me. He has orders to bring me to his brother alive.
The beating goes on.
Let me stop this, Culebra. I can kill all these motherfuckers and we’ll leave with the girls.
No. Culebra’s answer is quick and heated. We need to find Santiago or I’ll never be safe. Go. Please.
Vampire stirs, feeling Culebra’s pain, not understanding why I don’t unleash her to save our friend.
But the human Anna understands.
I fight my way out of my bramble hiding place and take off down the trail to the rocks. Culebra’s pain follows me but I know he’s right. It’s the only way. I’ll lay the false trail farther and farther from the village. By the time Ramon and his thugs realize they’re chasing a ghost, I will have Culebra and the girls to safety.
CHAPTER 34
MY THOUGHTS ARE FOCUSED ON ONE THING—take this trail deeper and deeper into the desert and farther and farther away from the village. If Ramon wonders why Max would come this way instead of heading back toward the road, I’m hoping he attributes it to Max being disoriented. He heard Max say in the Jeep that he’d never been in this part of Mexico before.
I run, fast, leaving as much damage as I can in my wake. Environmentalists would rank me with off-road vehicles and dirt bikes on the list of forces destructive to the Earth’s gentle crust. I kick, pull and crush whatever is underfoot.
When I gauge I’ve gone ten miles or so, I stop and look back. The meandering path of destruction looks good. A little obvious, maybe, but I’m hoping Ramon either isn’t smart enough or is too angry to make that distinction. And it’s dark. Ramon will only see what his flashlights allow.
Now to get back. This time, I make a wide arc away from the trail I just laid and run like a light-footed cat instead of a charging rhinoceros. I doubt Ramon will be able to tell anything except that the trail suddenly stops. Let him waste time trying to figure it out.
I almost get caught. I hear Ramon and his party as they arrive across the road from the rocks and burned-out truck. I have to dive for cover in some brush. I end up sharing the space with a startled rattlesnake that curls and hisses at me.
Culebra? I ask hopefully.
The snake’s only response is to rattle threateningly and slither backward away from me.
Away fro
m me.
Vampire is smiling. Not Culebra.
Ramon leads his gang toward the rocks and has soon picked up “Max’s” trail. I wait until they are well on their way to leave my hiding place and take off for the village.
As soon as I’m in communications range with Culebra, I open my thoughts, hoping Ramon didn’t do any permanent damage.
His reply is weak but coherent. You’re back.
Are you all right?
Depends on your description of all right. But maybe you should check with Ramon. I think I broke his knuckles with my face.
The husky sound of Culebra’s labored breathing as he attempts to laugh wipes the urge to smile off my face. You don’t sound well. I’m coming in to get you.
No. As quick as before. Adamant. I’m in no danger now. Luis and his guards will be coming here to eat at daybreak. They might let something slip that will give away his brother’s location.
Are you sure you’ll be all right?
Yes. I told you. They have orders not to kill me.
But it’s all right to beat him senseless. Reluctantly, I settle back into my den. By this time, I’ve actually made a nice little indentation for myself. Max’s duffel is secure behind me. A glance at my watch shows there’s still three hours until dawn, four until Max is due to call. I’m glad I had time to tell Max about Maria. She may be waiting in ambush on the path to the Jeep. If she and Gabriella were able to get out through that damaged door, that is.
I scoot down, curling into a ball, and rest my head against the duffel. Stephen’s face pops into my head. I’ve been gone how long? He’s probably in Washington already. I can’t call him. I have no idea how much battery power I have left in my cell. I can’t waste any to check. Besides, what would I say? Hadn’t I already come to the conclusion that going to Washington was out of the question for me?
Can’t dwell on something I can do nothing about. Four hours. This may be the last time I have to question Culebra about his past. I reach out to him.
I’m here, he replies with an echo of sarcasm that asks, where else would I be?
Tell me why Santiago still has it out for you?
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