by Josh Law
“Let’s see, I’ve got an Archangel for Renee, and a Mossberg 500 Tactical Persuader for you, Mrs. Avalon.” Chance tossed Renee both unloaded guns and she caught them mid-air. Marilyn finished filling up her tank and put her hand out for the shotgun when her phone started ringing.
“One second.” She plucked it free of her jeans and answered it.
“Yeah, this is Marilyn Avalon with the Amber Alert system?”
“Speaking of missing children, Mrs. Avalon. Your boys were my well-kept safe hostages before my very foolish daughter took off with them.”
“Who is this? How did you get this number?” Marilyn’s blood went cold.
“Oh, I think you know who it is. You can call me the Devil’s Swan, though, if you like. I guess if you’ve got cell coverage it means you’ve made it out of one-horse Durango, eh? On the look-out for me then, eh? Want you to know I’ve got tabs on you too. I only took your boy because I need his adrenaline samples and stuff. Whatever Army was making out of it, that Immortality Juice, he promised me-his real lover- some of it too. Now you got a baby out of your romance with Army, so you couldn’t be so grudging of me wanting a tiny bottle of serum, eh? Anyway, if you work with me your kid will live. If not, I’ll track him down. You better hope I get to him first. Other people want him for other nastier uses. I did him a favor by abducting him and I expect to be treated with the same kind of respect.” She was losing her patience. Marilyn could hear her chambering and then slowly easing up on a pistol close to the receiver for emphasis.
“Thanks for the tip. Now, let me politely be the first person to tell you that you can eat a huge pile of donkey turds and die. I’ll roast in Hell before I help you bring harm to my son or get your hands on the most controversial medical extract known to Humankind at the present.” The Vierras were staring at Marilyn wide-eyed.
“Roasting in Hell is the point of this Game, Senora. Are you sure you can beat it?”
“Where and when?” Marilyn gritted her teeth. Renee held her hands over her mouth in the prayer gesture and looked sidelong at Chance. He shrugged, speechless himself.
“Acapulco. I’ll see you there. You’ll need revelation and that’s the place to get it. If I find the boys first, I’ll bring them there. Maybe you can save them.” The Devil’s Swan hung up in Marilyn’s head.
She turned to look at the Vierra siblings.
“Still want to help me?” She raised a brow at Chance who folded his arms.
“You’re crazy, lady. Crazy like Nick. Sounds like that idiot’s crossed with Santa Meurte roadies, huh? Drug Alex along with him too, it looks like. Well, alright. I’ll help you catch up to him, so I can beat the crap out of him later.” He winked to indicate that he was playing.
“I’ll follow behind in old blue. Looks like we’re going on a little road trip.”
He ran to his truck. Marilyn and Renee took one glance at each other and hopped into the Demon. It was a long ride, with a sicario’s threat hanging over their heads. But their boys needed them. That was the only excuse they needed to face Death, Hell, and the Grave.
Chapter 5:
The shadows swarmed with them. The boys and Bacardi couldn’t see Anahi’s men but knew that they were there closing in on them, tightening the web that seemed to be continuously gathering at their feet.
Nick leaned around the edge of some metallic trash cans, the Jericho poised in clammy palms. Dogs were moving in the streetways. The street powers had cash pooled to hunt him down and drag him in for one bounty or another.
He swallowed and looked sidelong at Alex. His brother in the eyes of these criminal minds was merely collateral to the asset they meant to procure. Alex was critical to the balance and survival of Nick’s universe. There was no way he was going to allow him to be dragged off to some god-forsaken lab a second time.
The weight of the Cosmos was on Nick’s shoulders. He thought he’d known before what it meant to be a man on the run. He realized as he knelt here in the sand swept alley of Mazatlan’s shorefront that he’d never been so wrong.
Bacardi knelt close to him and leaned near his face.
“You hear the Hounds of Satan coming for you, I take it.”
Nick spun closer to her, eyes filled with fire.
“You wanted to escape. You must have believed it could actually be done.”
“It can, you just have to know which cards to play, which tools to pluck from your arsenal.” The girl winked.
“What are you suggesting?”
“A little bit of misinformation. A bargain here and there. Then a break for it. The three of us split up, then I buy us a ticket away from Anahi with my cantina charms. You boys contact your mamas. We have to think of every possible player in this game before we make our moves.” Bacardi rubbed her hands together. Her plan seemed foolproof.
“No. I don’t want my mother involved in this.” Nick was suddenly adamant. Alex nodded.
“He’s right. Last time was different. It happened at home and there was no getting around it. Our moms aren’t getting mixed up in this crap this time. It’s time for a plan B.”
“Ay! You know your mamas will come looking for you anyway!” Bacardi dug her nails into her thighs in frustration.
Nick and Alex looked at each other. Once more they understood what they had to do and they hated themselves for it.
“You said bargains, yeah?” Nick smiled sheepishly. Alex closed his eyes, not even wanting to entertain thoughts along these lines.
“What are you going to do?” Bacardi was suddenly afraid.
“You want away from your mother. I want away from your mother too. Living through this would be a plus, but you’re right. My mom and foster mom are going to get involved in this. My brother has gotten roped into this! Who knows who else will get caught in the crossfire before this is through? You think you can use whatever skills your mother taught you to buy me a personal appointment with Ashe?”
Bacardi’s jaw dropped.
“She’ll kill you, stupid!”
“Nick?” Alex was shaking his head, unwilling to do this.
Nick swallowed, his face contorted in intense pain.
“Alex, I’m sorry. I have debts to settle of my own. The way I see it I’m living off of borrowed time anyway.” He was close to losing his breath. What he was suggesting was suicide. Making a bargain with Ashe, information, and a trip Down-under, for the insurance that Alex, Marilyn, Renee and his other brothers and sisters would walk away from this unharmed would be a definite death sentence.
“I can’t consciously let you do that, man. But then, our whole family is on the chopping block if we don’t come up with some kind of bargain with her. So I’m going to throw in myself as a little extra insurance. I have the same genes and all as you so two birds weighed against her stone might be what it takes to buy them out.” Alex gripped Nick’s shoulder. Nick was pale.
“No! Dude, why else do you think I’d opt for something that crazy! I want you to live…” Nick’s lips turned a peculiar shade of purple. His whole body trembled.
“I can’t live without you, though. Beggars can’t be choosers, brother. You’re going to have to come up with a plan and stick to it. It’s either we sacrifice ourselves to Ashe to buy our family out or we come up with something that lets us both live. That’s just how it has to be.” Alex laughed to dull the pain.
Bacardi was shaking her head and waving her fingers.
“No! If my mother finds out I sold you to Ashe and rooked her, she’ll have me boiled in pig fat! This is supposed to work for the three of us, genius! Remember, I sprung you out!” Bacardi swung her fist into Nick’s chest. He grappled the girl by either shoulder and made her look him in the face.
“Listen, this isn’t exactly calculus! Ashe’s the definition of desperate. If she wants her Hell Money sacrifice badly enough, then she’ll agree to certain terms and conditions for it. I can buy you witness protection!”
Bacardi froze. She could see the madness in Nick’s eyes. The boy craved a health
y, lengthy life like any well person, but it was becoming rapidly more of a wish than a probability.
“Is there a way you can buy me a private audience with Ashe and the Convention?” Nick counted his breaths to maintain focus eyes globally wide with his internal struggle.
“There’s a gentlemen’s club primarily for assassins in this City. My mother has based her headquarters here to slap those people in the face. She’s crossed all of them on multiple occasions. A particular one that would really love to have that pretty gun back.”
Nick looked at the Jericho, eyes filled with surprise. Bacardi smiled.
“She gave that to your dad after one of their “sessions”. It belonged to my prostitute/pistol packing mother’s only real love, one man by the nickname of “Cipriano the Death Angel”. He was the ultimate sicario to ever have run with the Acapulco gangs. He quit the life because of her, entrusted his pistol to her keeping. She betrayed him and that’s how your dad came by it. I don’t know how you got it, but I’d say it was a blessing from Divinity. You can use it to buy his protection out of this City. He can take us to her headquarters in Acapulco.”
Chapter 6:
They barely cleared the gates of Mexico. Marilyn swore she heard rattlesnakes’spirits in the dust that pelted the Demon’s windows.
Renee was leaning over the backseat, fully sober now. She had the Archangel resting on the backseat and aiming out the window. Anahi had more guys in her corner than Bonnaroo had followers.
“Did we even get an invite to this party?” Renee wearily drew the rifle’s bolt back for the umpteenth time as the dust was kicked up by vicious wheels into her teeth.
“I think we’re the guests of honor.” Marilyn swerved to miss a border control truck that had gotten caught in the crosshairs.
Chance rolled up next to her and leaned out his window. He had a magazine pinched between his teeth and a pistol posed in one hand that he was attempting to reload while maneuvering the machine gun rain.
“The word for this will spread real quickly, miss! We’re probably going to be on national TV!” Chance tossed his head to look behind, the dust having painted his cheeks brick and gray. There was the ominous thunder of a rocket launcher. One of the concrete walls that surrounded the Mexican border spewed sparks and came crumbling down like baked mud.
“Good! More publicity for the Durango Drop Science Trials. If we can get me somewhere with coffee and wifi, then I’ll shoot an email to the jury to explain my absence. Give my personal interview over the wire.” Marilyn smiled with forced hopefulness. She had her phone in one hand and her pistol in another using the ends of her fingers to try and steer. She looked haphazardly down at the GPS screen, noticing that Nicky’s icon hadn’t moved in over two hours. The icon was floating in the middle of a main highway. No secret lab there.
“Come on, Nicky. Don’t be the hero. Just this one time don’t play Cowboys and Indians with me, boy!” Marilyn let the phone slide to the floorboards, feeling tears brim in her eyes. She knew her son. He’d found a way to shake the Devil’s Swan and now he was cooking up schemes of his own. Ones that no doubt included some kind of gung-ho youth’s tendency to martyrdom.
He was going to do it. Whatever it took to save them all from this crazed woman and the people she was rat racing against to claim the death cure fortune from. That was Nicky, as selfless as he was reckless and crafty enough to pull off such a bargain. Given a few years, he could have made an epic businessman or diplomat. Marilyn even thought he’d make the best President that ever lived and not just because he was her son. He’d experienced first-hand what corrupted government policies and out-of-control officials were capable of. He would do better.
The car wheeled to the left. Chance’s truck had fallen behind. The choppers now swarmed them like dogs from Hell. Either Marilyn was going to have to make a beautiful exit or they were going to be hostages.
“Think like Nicky.” She drew a deep breath. It came to her with a tiny smirk. Nicky would be charging at them not running away, if it were her life on the line.
She spun in a donut sweep and punched it straight for their noses.
“Hey! Hello, Avalon? I’m suddenly facing away from enemy lines?” Renee leaned back from the rifle confused.
“Hang on, Renee. I’m going to shake these rodeo clowns and then we’ll get back to looking for the boys.”
The element of surprise is one weathered card in the stack that never loses its kick. The biker’s scrambled to miss the charging Demon, and swerved straight into the blaze. Screams and chaos ensued. For a moment the border police were distracted by attempting to see that their suspects were alive to arrest.
Marilyn spun the hot rod around again, heading in a hot-blood run for Acapulco.
“One in a million! You totally owned them!” Renee slapped the rifle’s butt with coursing laughter.
“You heard the expression, you break it you bought it? Yeah, I think I just started a street battle across the entire Mexican map. Buckle your seat belt. The boss lady’s going to bill me pretty soon. This means war.”
Chapter 7:
La Cantina Golgotha was hidden in the back rooms of an ancient Catholic church somewhere in the historical segment of the City.
Nick held his breath. Bacardi was in the middle of a hush-toned debate with the bouncer at the back door who had disguised himself as the groundskeeper and was trimming the grass around ancient tombstones.
The girl reached into her boot and pulled up a handful of gold-colored poker chips. The boys weren’t sure what this meant but knew it must be some kind of admittance to the club. The bouncer smiled, exposing a mouthful of gold teeth.
“Alright, so you want to talk to the boss, eh?” The bouncer pushed past Bacardi and leaned closer to Nick. The boy squared his shoulders, drawing up to his full impressive height.
“That depends on who you name the boss. I’m here to talk to Senor Cipriano ‘Death Angel’.” Nick tossed his head defiantly and flashed the Jericho he had tucked in his belt.
The bouncer’s eyes went wide.
“Right. There’s only one boss here, Senor. Come with me.”
Blasphemy bled from the walls for all those things which Latin Catholicism held to be sacred. Crucifixes made of iron were swinging from the ceiling. They clattered together ominously, making Alex jump from his skin. He wasn’t entirely in control here. Allowing his brother to make this move was like leading a lamb to the slaughter.
The Bouncer led them through many smoking rooms where men sat at long tables of braided car parts held together by barbwire. Cleary the local gangs had pieced together everything they could scratch up from the sidewalk as a statement of their true street power. There was a section at the center of the bar that was partitioned off by wads upon wads of rusted, blood-stained razor wire. There was a sound like growling coming from the other side. The boys exchanged a glance. Were they really going to go through with this?
They abruptly found themselves at the bar. Bacardi was talking in rapid-fire Spanish to a man that had his back turned to the boys.
Slowly he turned around. Around 50 something, he had chin length black hair and the oldest, saddest eyes of anyone who lives. He wore a black leather jacket that looked like it had passed through the fire, burned in many blotchy places that still flaked with white ashes as though it happened very recently. Even his jeans and cowboy boots were singed, but none so badly as the jacket. He smoked a Te Amo nonchalantly and looked them up and down.
“The girl tells me you want to talk to me about a job? Jobs equal dineros, eh? No free lunches, amigos.” He rubbed his fingers together.
Nick grinned impishly.
“Oh, I intend to pay you, Senor. Let’s talk currency.” He produced the Jericho.
Cipriano sat up, jaw having dropped.
“Ay! Where did you get that?!”
“Well, it’s a bit of a story. The Devil’s Swan gave it to my father who buried it in the mud outside a children’s home in Durango, Colora
do.”
Cipriano leaned back on his heels, cursing Anahi under his breath.
“Ah, so I see. You found it. Now you want to buy my services with something that rightfully belongs to me?”
“Possession is 9/10ths of the law, no? It’s in my possession. You can have it back. Low cost, too. All you have to do is take me to Ashe.”
Cipriano shook his head, taking a long draw off his cigar.
“You want to pay me with my gun to help you commit suicide? You must be very desperate, muchacho.” He began to rack with appalled coughs.
“Oh, we are. Enough to suggest human sacrifice to buy our family’s freedom. If the gun’s not enough, then we’ll have to come up with another kind of payment. Let’s talk price.” Alex stepped forward, folding his arms. Cipriano must have seen the desperate look in the boy’s eyes. He looked from one brother to the next and nodded slowly.
“Desperados…Yeah, I know the look. I was a boy once too, with little choice. You’re Army Prescott’s sons aren’t you?”
“Two of many.” Nick waved the gun in the air, indicating the offer was pending.
Cipriano nodded.
“Bacardi. Mix up some Palomas for the boys and me. Put them in my specialized glassware.” He snapped his fingers. Bacardi cracked her fingers and headed behind the bar.
“My natural habitat.” She convulsed with girlish giggles that belied her young age, popping open a bottle of tequila and a few Jarritos Toronja sodas. She then tugged a small milk crate out from under the counter. The boys dropped their teeth. It was filled with human skulls that had been spread open to hold rocks and highball glasses. She pulled up three highballs that had the small skulls of young men attached. Their teeth had once been studded with gold and were now filed to make for mug-like handles as they had made the glass cumbersome.
“Don’t look so surprised. They were very skillful opponents and I had to honor them in some way. I drink to their memory every time I have a drink which is often. It somewhat makes up for their murder or, at least, keeps me out of confession. I don’t bother to go anyway. My soul was marked black long ago.” Cipriano closed his eyes tightly and drank deeply of the Te Amo letting the smoke roil from his nostrils. He was a fallen angel in every sense. A dragon with broken wings.