Certain Dark Things

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “I don’t know for sure. Rumors have been spreading that there was a vampire on the loose and some northern guy was willing to pay for her. And the dog.”

  “Nick,” Atl whispered, and glanced up at Quinto. “When are the buyers coming?”

  “I don’t know. They should be here soon enough. I’m just supposed to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t die on us before they arrive.”

  “How thoughtful. You know, if you let me go now, I won’t have to kill you,” Atl said.

  “But I’d kill him,” the Jackal told her, stepping forward. He was wearing the flashy metallic jacket he loved and gray sweatpants.

  Next to him stood Belén. She appeared utterly shocked. Two other men rounded out the party. These were the Jackal’s usual thugs and did not seem to find the scene before them particularly surprising.

  “You’re the Jackal?” Atl asked.

  “You got that right,” the Jackal said, looking smug. “Seems I’m famous. Did he tell you about that time I made him lick my boots?”

  “Fuck you,” Domingo said, feeling his face grow warm.

  “It was very fun. Maybe we can have some fun with you, too, sweetheart, although I have to say you’re not looking too hot.” The Jackal frowned. “Quinto, what the fuck is this? They said they want her in one piece and she looks like shit. You sure she ain’t going to keel over and die? If she dies I’m cutting your balls.”

  “No, don’t be thinking that. She should be able to make it.”

  “I need blood,” Atl informed them. “I need it now.”

  The Jackal gave Quinto a questioning look. “That true?”

  “I don’t know! I’m not an expert in vampire medicine. What am I supposed to do, stop by the Red Cross for plasma?” Quinto said, looking at Domingo. “If she is really hungry there’s Do…”

  Quinto trailed off, but Domingo understood well enough. The Jackal chuckled and his men smiled.

  “What’s Nick paying for me?” Atl asked.

  The Jackal shrugged and took out a toothpick, picking at his teeth. “Something or the other. Doesn’t matter.”

  “I have money too.”

  “Doesn’t look like it, sweetheart. I’ll stick with the guy who owns the Mercedes.”

  “I’m Atl of the Iztac clan. You should let me go now. Immediately.”

  The Jackal moved closer to the mesh door of their makeshift cell and wagged a finger at Atl. “Bitch, you ain’t going nowhere and if you know what’s good for you, you better shut your mouth before you harsh my mellow.”

  There was a loud buzzing sound and the Jackal took out his phone while biting down on his toothpick. He pressed his ear against the phone and barked a loud yes, twice, then hung up.

  “You guys keep an eye on her. I gotta go greet our friends.”

  The Jackal walked away, giving them one of his screeching laughs. Domingo sat on the mattress and placed an arm around Atl’s shoulders. Her breathing had suddenly sped up, as though she were running. She began to cough again and then she was convulsing. Domingo had to let go of her because her body was contorting in such a violent fashion. He watched as she coughed again, spewing bile, and then she fell on her back. Her mouth was overflowing with blood.

  “She’s choking,” he told Quinto. “She’s choking on her own blood.”

  Quinto, Belén, and the two men looked at him with mute incomprehension. Domingo tossed himself against the mesh door, shaking it hard.

  “She’s going to die! Quinto, help her!”

  Quinto took out his keys and with shaking fingers opened the door. Belén and the two men just stared at the unfolding scene, watching as Quinto dragged his backpack inside the cell and began rummaging in it.

  “Do something!”

  “I’m trying to find the damn epinephrine!”

  Quinto managed to pull out a syringe and drove it into Atl’s chest. She immediately yanked it out and rammed it into Quinto’s eye. Domingo stepped back and lost his footing.

  Atl pulled out a knife from between the folds of her jacket and threw it at one of the men, hitting him square in the middle of his forehead. The other man reacted quickly enough, grabbing a gun and shooting at her, but the bullet did not hit her and she landed on the man’s chest, breaking his neck with one clean movement.

  Then she was up and standing with such speed Domingo did not understand what was happening at first. Belén gasped as Atl grabbed her by the neck, her long fingers squeezing.

  “What are you doing?” Domingo asked.

  “I need blood,” Atl said.

  “Don’t hurt her!”

  Atl turned her head and stared at him; her voice was hard. “I won’t. Get my dog,” she said.

  Domingo scrambled toward Quinto and pulled the keys out of his pocket. Quinto was moaning in pain, but Domingo had no time to help him. He hurried down the hallway, looking at each of the meshed doors. Cualli was way down the hallway, and when he came back with the dog, he found that Atl had Belén pinned against a wall, her mouth pressed against the girl’s neck. Belén gave him a panicked look.

  “I told you not to hurt her!” he cried.

  Domingo pulled Atl back. She looked at him with her other face, her bird’s face, her eyes narrowed into two angry slits.

  “Atl, let her go,” he said.

  She hissed at him and continued feeding. Belén was weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Domingo swallowed. He bent down and grabbed the gun one of the men had dropped. His hands trembled. He had no idea how to use the weapon and he didn’t want to do this but he knew he had to. Atl just wasn’t herself right that instant.

  “Let her go,” he said. “You’re going to kill her.”

  “Don’t interfere.”

  He pressed the gun against her back. “Atl, stop. I mean it.”

  Atl spun around and clutched his face with one hand, tilting it a little and tilting her own head in turn, staring at him. Her eyes were dark and hard as obsidian.

  “You mean it? Have you ever pulled a trigger, hmm?”

  “Atl,” he muttered. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “This won’t kill her.”

  “Fine. Let her go now,” he said, and somehow he managed to speak calmly.

  She seemed to respond to his tone, her hand sliding down his face and pulling away.

  “Very well,” Atl said, and she shoved the girl aside like she was a wet rag, then walked into the cell where Quinto lay whimpering.

  Domingo caught Belén in his arms and held her as she sobbed. For a moment he thought Atl was going to kill Quinto, but all she did was grab her jacket from the place where it lay on the mattress and put it on with the greatest care, as if it weren’t stained and filthy. Then she walked out, pulled her knife from the corpse where it was lodged, and hid it between the folds of her jacket. When she raised her head to look at Domingo her face had shifted and seemed human again.

  “You should run now, girl,” Atl said.

  Belén disentangled herself from Domingo’s arms and, obeying Atl, rushed down the hallway, away from them. She knew the building, and Domingo was confident she’d find her way out safely. Or she’d hide until it was safe enough to exit.

  “Do you want to follow her?” Atl asked him, her voice a challenge.

  No, he thought, and another part of him cried a definitive Yes, I want out of this. And he kind of wondered why he was doing this, why he was sticking to her. The answer was not a coherent thought, merely the thump of his heartbeat.

  He shook his head and offered her the gun he was holding. She snatched it from his hands.

  “You know a way out?”

  “There’s a loading area,” Domingo said. “We can get out from there.”

  Atl raised her head, as though she were listening for something. “They’re here. We need to go.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  Rodrigo said he had a team of people ready, but in Nick’s opinion the seven goons that comprised the team lo
oked pretty damn shitty. Nick didn’t know what sewer the new recruits had crawled out of, but they certainly didn’t seem very skilled. Hell, none of them had even met a vampire before. They were Mexico City lads, cocooned in their shit city for far too long. Nick looked at their weapons, scattered over the living room, and smirked.

  Regular guns. As if that could kill one of his kind. Nick grabbed a rifle that had been left on a large dining room table and held it up, pointing at one of Rodrigo’s paintings. He quickly turned his attention toward the knives, which were more interesting, and the stun batons. Now that was real vampire-hunting gear.

  “I told you not to touch anything,” La Bola said.

  “I am not breaking it.”

  “You have to stay in your room.”

  Nick rolled his eyes and snorted. La Bola was pathetic, stammering whatever words were put in his mouth. This was what his bodyguard amounted to: a fidgeting moron. Nick wished Justiniano had not died in Guadalajara. He’d been a smart cookie. The girl’s stupid dog killed him. When they found Atl, he was going to skin the dog before her very eyes.

  “Look, Bola, either I get out of this apartment or you get out in a body bag.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic,” Rodrigo said from behind him.

  Nick turned around and stared at the old man, scowling.

  “If you want to go out, we are making a business trip and could use your company. I might have found our lady friend.”

  “You found Atl?” Nick said.

  “Maybe. I imagine you want to come along for the ride? Unless you’d like to stay here and watch a few cartoons. The team is ready to go.”

  Nick gave Rodrigo the finger, but followed him down to the car anyway. Bola and the shitty team were just behind them.

  “When were you thinking of briefing me?” Nick asked once they were inside the car. No one ever told him anything.

  “I got the news only a little while ago. I’ve been sharing Atl’s photo and description with every lowlife in Mexico City I’ve ever had dealings with, and apparently we hit the jackpot.”

  Rodrigo handed Nick his phone and Nick looked at the picture on the screen. It wasn’t a terribly good image, but it looked like Atl, her eyes closed.

  “Who’s got her?” Nick asked.

  “A nobody who got lucky. She’s alive and badly injured.”

  “It should be a piece of cake, then.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Rodrigo warned him.

  They drove for a while and when the lights turned red at an intersection, a young kid sprang forward with a rag in his hand, ready to wash their windows. Nick was going to shoo the kid away but Rodrigo spoke up.

  “I’m looking for the Jackal,” Rodrigo told the boy.

  “He said you were coming,” the boy said. “Keep driving. Turn right after five blocks and ask for him again.”

  Rodrigo did as the kid said and at the next intersection there was a girl who was also washing windows. She approached the car and the game was repeated again. In total, they had to speak with three kids in order to reach their final destination: an old factory with the windows on the first floor shuttered. The outside had been painted and repainted with graffiti. They parked their cars, and the seven goons, along with Rodrigo, Nick, and La Bola, assembled before the factory’s doors. Nacho and Colima were told to remain in the cars, just in case a quick getaway was necessary.

  Only a couple of minutes after they had parked two teenagers opened the doors of the building and let them in, guiding them to a room with nothing but peeling walls and a few chairs. Half a dozen young men, including a kid who could not have been older than thirteen, were sitting on the chairs, smoking cigarettes and chatting with each other. When they walked in, one of them stood up, tall and strong, his head shaved. Up close Nick saw he was noticeably older than the rest.

  The man shook their hands.

  “I’m the Jackal,” he announced.

  “I’m Rodrigo and this is Nick. We have the reward.”

  Rodrigo took out a briefcase and opened it, showing its contents to the Jackal. The Jackal seemed very pleased, chuckling. He had an unpleasant voice, a bit high-pitched.

  “Good. I have your girl and your dog.”

  “I’m eager to see them both,” Rodrigo said.

  “She’s over here,” the Jackal said, and started walking.

  They followed him. The Jackal’s men were chatty, while Rodrigo and Nick remained quiet. They rounded a corner, and even before he could see anything Nick knew something was wrong. He smelled the blood. The Jackal was going to open a door, but Nick shoved him away.

  The Jackal protested loudly, but Nick slammed the door open and walked into a hallway lined with cages. Just as he thought. He spotted two men on the ground. Nick spun around, glaring at the Jackal.

  “What the fuck is this?” Nick asked.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t think your lady friend could manage this. No worries. They’ll be trying to head out through the loading bay or the side entrance,” the Jackal said. “We can cut them off if we split up.”

  “Well, let’s cut them the hell off!” Nick yelled.

  The Jackal barked orders at two of his men. Rodrigo ordered four of their own goons to go with the Jackal’s boys; the other three remained with them.

  “All right, let’s nab them,” the Jackal said, chuckling some more.

  They rushed back the way they had come. Rodrigo’s goons had their guns and stun batons out, but Nick hadn’t bothered bringing anything. He cursed himself for this basic mistake.

  “This way, this way,” the Jackal urged them. They stumbled into what must have once been a large loading area, now littered with broken crates and garbage and perfumed with the scent of blood. And there she was, killing a man, one of the Jackal’s boys who’d obviously tried to bar her escape. He also spotted a young man and Atl’s dog, though they were both of little importance and seemed to be cowering in a corner. His focus was the girl.

  Nick stepped forward, ready to smash her to shreds, but Rodrigo grabbed Nick’s arm.

  “Get her! Hurry up!” cried the old man. He looked at the Jackal. “You too, you morons. There’s no payment if she gets out of here.”

  The Jackal yelled a few orders and the three young men—teenagers; “men” was not the right term—escorting him quickly rushed to surround Atl, no questions asked. She kicked one away, sending him slamming against a bunch of old crates. Rodrigo, meanwhile, was still holding Nick by the arm.

  “Let go,” Nick muttered.

  “They can handle it. No need for you to get your hands dirty.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “This is their job.”

  The Jackal was yelling into his phone, telling someone to hurry to the loading bay, and Rodrigo turned to speak to the goons.

  Nick watched as Atl pulled out a gun and shot two of the teenagers who were trying to seize her. Her gun emptied, she tossed it away, then turned around and evaded one of Rodrigo’s goons. As a Tlāhuihpochtli Atl simply did not possess the greater strength of a Necros. But what Atl might not pack in strength, she made up for in speed. It was not impossible for a human to take her down in her current state, but it wasn’t that easy, either. And the man trying to get a good shot at her now was woefully unprepared.

  She yanked his rifle out of his hands and blew his head off with a single shot.

  Nick’s nostrils flared, the whiff of blood making him salivate. They were doing it wrong, bunch of amateurs.

  “I don’t care,” Nick said, shoving Rodrigo away. “You want something done right you do it yourself.”

  “Nick, you asshole!”

  He gave Rodrigo the finger and headed straight toward Atl, snatching a stun baton from the nervous hands of one of Rodrigo’s goons.

  Man, he was going to have fun. She saw him approaching and her eyes narrowed in recognition.

  Yeah, bitch. It’s me again.

  “Hey,” he told her. “How’ve you been? Long time n
o see, you cocksucking whore.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  The moment Nick stepped forward, Atl knew things were about to get very messy. Humans were one thing. A vampire was quite another. She was really in no state to fight anybody, with just a bit of that girl’s blood coursing through her body. Atl was running on adrenaline and bravado, and both of these were evaporating, fast.

  “Hey,” he told her. “How’ve you been? Long time no see, you cocksucking whore.”

  “Fuck yourself with your glow stick,” she shot back.

  Nick leapt toward her, slamming the stun baton in the direction of her head. Atl barely had time to raise the rifle and repel the blow with the weapon. Nick was strong, damn strong, and she felt the strength of his blow as it hit the rifle’s barrel.

  She spotted a young man creeping behind her and shot him smack in the chest, jumping back as Nick lowered the baton a second time, missing her by a couple of inches.

  She kept backing away, realizing she was getting dangerously close to a wall, while Nick tried to make contact with the baton. She darted to the left and took quick aim at Nick, shooting him in the chest, but he kept coming toward her as though she hadn’t shot him at all.

  The vampire growled, opening his mouth and showing her multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth, like a shark’s. He flipped the baton from one hand to the other, eager to get closer to her.

  “Tired yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she whispered, and jumped up into the air. She slammed her foot on Nick’s head and landed behind him with a grunt.

  Nick turned and took a swipe at her, but Atl evaded him and hit him with the butt of the rifle, giving it all she had. The blow was enough to send Nick staggering back. Atl charged forward, ready to smash his head into a pulp.

  A shot rang, then another, and she felt the bullets bite into her flesh. Atl hissed, flipping around to see the Jackal standing behind her. She kicked him and he flew against the crates, his gun spilling from his hands and rattling against the floor. When she turned around to face Nick, he was inches from her and the baton made contact with her neck.