I might as well take a minute to start setting up the resolution of these so-called wishes, Tez decided next. Because, as much as the deity would like to think that he wasn't bound by any earthly rules, breaking promises to worshipers tended to sap his strength like nobody's business.
Which isn't to say I have to give them exactly what they expect. As long as I stick to the letter of my vow, I can instead present these humans with what they truly deserve....
Never one to mess around with difficult tasks when he could lazily get by with something simple, Tez turned his attention to the male worshiper first. Finn's yearning for were-jaguar companionship would be easy to relieve since Tezcatlipoca had a pretty good idea where one feline shifter was located at the moment. Plus, the story Tez had just overheard hinted about the identity of another.
With no worshiper touching his prison, the god wasn't able to set his spirit entirely free to roam in search of other shifters as he would have liked. But his suspicions were enough to arrow Tez's attention in on two regions of the world. And, sure enough, the brighter-than-mere-mortal spark of potential worshipers showed up on the god's internal radar in short order.
Finn would give his eye teeth to meet this first one, Tezcatlipoca thought as he slipped inside a were-jaguar's mind. So we'll ignore it for the moment and move on to the other.
There were few things more enjoyable than playing cat and mouse with human prey. Reel them in with promises of glorious dreams, then slap them in the face with the wet fish of reality. And this second were-jaguar was definitely the wet fish of the shifter world.
So I'll just ease into this particular brain a wee bit and discover what kind of compulsion I can implant from a distance....
Ah, message received. Tez smiled and allowed his tether to drag him back into the watery prison. His cell wasn't so bad now that he had the energy to create a deep plush couch and a drink cabinet atop the ever-expanding rock that had risen up out of the sea. Now, how about a big screen TV...?
Still, the deity's mood wasn't good enough to allow his worshipers too much leeway. I think those pet humans have been making out long enough. Slipping into the flight attendant's mind, the deity laughed aloud as he tweaked the woman's thoughts to create a little simple mayhem.
Gotta keep my lackeys guessing....
Chapter 18
"I won't be able to sleep until we land," Ixchel said once the school-marm-like stewardess was out of sight. "So I guess I might as well live up to my promise and tell you about my family. Unless you want to take a nap instead?"
Strange how much easier it was to kiss a complete stranger in a public place than to spill this story that had gone unspoken for the last decade. Not that Finn feels like a stranger, Ixchel thought, one hand unconsciously rising to brush against her lips. The organs in question felt swollen and appeared to be full of twice as many nerve endings as usual, so the vet couldn't resist letting those same lips curl up into a self-satisfied smile. I feel like the cat who drank the cream....
"I'd far rather listen to you talk than sleep," Finn murmured, his voice barely reaching her ears. In response, the vet shivered with some strange combination of desperate desire...and fear of what the man beside her would think when he knew her darkest secret.
The shifter in question responded by removing the stewardess's blanket from his own body and draping it around Ixchel's form instead. She was sure the gesture had been meant to ease physical cold, but it succeeded just as well at warming the cockles of her heart and giving her the courage to spill her secrets.
"Well, I guess I should start at the beginning," the vet said into the silence and darkness when Finn didn't offer another topic of conversation to let her off the hook. It was easy to fall into a story-telling rhythm when she could barely make out the shape of her listener, allowing Ixchel to imagine that she was merely soothing her niece and nephew to sleep with a fairytale about some other Latina lass. Divorcing the action from herself, at least in her own mind, made the act of sharing a little more palatable.
"My parents both emigrated from Mexico when they were in their late teens," she started, beginning the story years before she was born. "But they wanted us kids to be completely American. So we didn't speak Spanish at home, even though Mamá's English was never very good.
"But I spent a lot of time at my father's sister Maria's house, and she didn't know any English at all. Which is how I came to grow up learning not only English, but Spanish as well. And also the indio tongue that Maria and her husband spoke at home."
Ixchel paused, waiting for some acknowledgement from her seat mate. But he remained motionless, and the expectant silence somehow made it easier for her to go on.
"I guess that's not really relevant," the vet continued. "Except that Maria adhered to the old ways. She's the one who first told me that my brothers were going down a dark path, only she ascribed their actions to being tempted by the devil. I was a freshman in high school then, and my oldest brother Fernando had already married and become a father of twins. But once my aunt clued me in, I couldn't help noticing how Fernando and my other brothers went out together most nights and then came home with bloody noses and also with possessions that they shouldn't have been able to afford. Things like fancy tennis shoes and mp3 players, which I later realized they were stealing from other kids or straight from the stores.
"As you guessed, I was a pesky little sister. But I loved my brothers. My mother was a nurse, and I'd always helped her doctor up everyone's boo-boos as a child. So when José came to me with a bullet wound one night, I did my best to clean him up. But I also lit into him like a rooster chasing a fox out of the henhouse.
"Of course, José didn't listen to me. None of them did. Years passed and they kept getting deeper and deeper into trouble. There were more bullet wounds and knife wounds and fist wounds than I care to remember, and the loot they brought home turned into drugs and cold, hard cash. And still each of my five brothers blew me off every time I begged him to find a different way to make a living.
"So I turned sneaky. I started keeping a notebook to record my brothers' comings and goings, what they brought home, which events in the newspaper the next day seemed to be relevant to their secret lives. I threatened to turn my brothers in to the cops, figuring self-preservation would do what pleas had not.
"But they laughed at me. All five of my brothers knew that it would break Mamá's and Papá's hearts if they knew that this American life they'd built for their children wasn't as perfect as it appeared. And I could never make myself do something that would hurt our parents, even when I knew the choice was the only solution to my brothers' dangerous behavior.
"So I bided my time for years, until I was getting ready to graduate from high school. In retrospect, I should've talked to someone much sooner, to some adult. But Maria had moved back to Mexico after her husband died—she didn't have any children. And my parents were always working so hard to keep food on the table that I didn't want to bother them with my worries. Plus, I didn't trust my teachers, who looked at me funny because my skin was a different color than their own. Really, I can't think of anyone now who I might have confided in, even if I hadn't been a stupid teenager."
A tiny sound from beside her reminded Ixchel that she had an audience, and she suddenly felt unable to go on. The pain in her stomach that seemed to rise up every time she thought about her family was worse than ever now, and the vet pressed one hand against her cloth-clad skin even though she knew it would do nothing to ease the psychosomatic ache.
Still without speaking, Finn reached over to surreptitiously slide his fingers beneath the blanket and Ixchel's blouse before coming to a stop over her belly. The vet expected her companion's touch to feel sexual, to return her to the heightened emotions of their kiss. But, instead, the gesture merely reminded her of a cat lying down on a troubled human's lap, settling her nerves without the need for words.
"Anyway, it all came to a head on the evening of my eighteenth birthday," she continued,
her voice little more than a whisper. "We had a party—my parents and me and my brothers. And, afterwards, Fernando begged me to come home with him and babysit his twins so he and his wife could go out to a nightclub. Childcare was a pretty regular task for me, and since my birthday didn't land on a school night, Mamá said I should just sleep over at my brother's place and come home in the morning.
"But when I woke up, Fernando wasn't there and his wife looked grim. Before Rita could stop me, I rushed down the two blocks to the apartment that my brothers (minus Fernando) and I all shared with my parents...and that's when I found Mamá dead on the floor of the living room. Papá was lying in a pool of his own blood halfway to the kitchen, where he'd probably been trying to reach a phone to call the police. Neither of them were breathing when I tiptoed through the gore to their sides.
"When I was able to stand up, I saw that the windows were shattered from a drive-by shooting and my parents' blood splatter was drying on the walls. I was in shock, but I was still able to realize that my parents' death had been retaliation by my brothers' enemies in response to their crimes. And the absence of my siblings from the scene of this current bloodbath proved that my siblings planned to revenge our parents' murder in their own violent way. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
"So I did what I'd been scheming about for the last four years. I called the cops. And when the first cruiser arrived, I handed over the notebook that spelled out my brothers' criminal activities in painstaking detail. The police hunted all five of my siblings down and arrested them that very day.
"I left town before my brothers got out of jail," she finished. "I haven't seen them since."
Ixchel realized at last that Finn's hand was making soothing circles across the skin of her stomach as she spoke. And, miraculously, her bellyache wasn't as profound as it had been the few other times the vet had allowed herself to recall the events of her eighteenth birthday in such vivid detail.
Still, she waited on tenterhooks to see what her companion would make of her betrayal. Because betrayal it had been. Ixchel had turned her back on her own brothers, had run her parents' good name through the mud even as the elder Morenos were being laid in their graves. She'd never forgiven herself for her own lack of honor, so she couldn't see how anyone else could forgive her either.
But the shifter didn't offer any harsh words. Instead, he simply said: "You miss them."
The rumble of Finn's voice felt like the gentle hum of a fan lulling Ixchel to sleep, and she felt the final pang in her stomach ease just a little bit more.
"I do," she admitted. "But my brothers wouldn't want to talk to me now. So Tezzie's going to have to work a miracle if he thinks he can reunite me with my family once we break him free."
"That's what our slippery little god promised while I had my hand off the statue?"
"Yeah," Ixchel admitted.
"Then that's what he'll do," Finn concluded, a hint of steel underlying his soothing voice. "I'll make sure of it."
Chapter 19
She'd fallen asleep on his shoulder, and it was all Finn could do not to shift into jaguar form and curl his body protectively around hers. And that would certainly get the stewardess's panties in a twist, the shifter thought with wry amusement.
Instead of causing an international incident, Finn settled for gently stroking his companion's hair and replaying the preceding conversation over and over again in his mind. The inevitable conclusion was as simple as it was profound—he and Ixchel were friends.
It shouldn't have come as a startling realization, but the vet was the first human around whom Finn had allowed himself to let down his guard in...well...ever. And Ixchel had responded by sharing the details of her own checkered past, even though she clearly expected to be judged lacking in the process.
Although why I'd think less of her when she didn't do anything wrong is beyond me.
But Finn would be the first one to admit that families were confusing. So it was no surprise that Ixchel's troubled brothers and murdered parents had left the vet feeling regretful even though the teenaged version of Ixchel had done the best she could with the few tools she'd had on hand.
The next time she faces her brothers, I'll be by her side, Finn resolved. And if those bastards didn't man up and apologize to their sister for being arrogant assholes, then the shifter would make their lives a living hell until they did the right thing.
It was simple, really.
What was less simple was the elements of Finn's own history that he'd glossed over in his own version of sharing. The manipulations, the sneaking around, the outright thievery that made up such a large portion of his past...and present. Based on Ixchel's reaction to her brothers' behavior, the shifter could guess that she wouldn't be thrilled to know that the cash paying their way to Mexico originated in ancient Egyptian funerary goods. That the clothes he planned to buy in order to replace that adorable but eye-catching lab coat would be funded by a Monet recently snagged out of a major museum.
I should've just told her. The shifter had started to spill his guts when Ixchel had finished her own tale of woe. The vet probably would've understood how a newly made man dropped into the human world with no family or means of making a living would turn to crime to pay the bills.
And it was a point in his favor that Finn had never been violent. He didn't even carry a gun, and the bullet hole that throbbed whenever he turned his arm the wrong way was the only wound he'd ever received in the pursuit of ill-gotten gain.
After all, as a were-jaguar, it was simple to slip in through upper-story windows, to slink around laser-based alarms, to leap over ten-foot fences. He was a darned good cat burglar and didn't need firepower to snag what he was after.
But Ixchel likely wouldn't see that as a selling point in a potential mate. And Finn wanted to get closer to the vet too much to risk losing her over his profession. Surely he could keep the two avenues of his current life separate until Ixchel trusted him a little more...and until he thought through an alternative way to make a living.
Keep telling yourself that, you schmuck. Omitting this rather important element of his own life story had been a bad choice and Finn knew it. But a cat would almost always choose present pleasure over the nebulous "right thing to do."
And, at heart, Finn was very much a cat. So he continued stroking Ixchel's hair in silence until he, like his companion, drifted off into a doze.
Chapter 20
"Did you ever think it might not have been the brightest idea to pry Tezzie's statue out of the ground?" Ixchel asked as they snagged new, international burner phones and a Mexican rental car to replace the items they'd left behind on the other side of the Gulf.
"Every hour on the hour," Finn replied. The trouble was, their parasitic deity seemed to have grown more powerful during the flight rather than less so. By the time they'd picked up the statue at baggage claim, their pet god was able to insinuate his demands into both Finn's and Ixchel's minds without the need for any sort of physical contact at all. I should have tossed the dratted statue when I had the chance, the shifter mused.
I can hear that, you know, the god griped. And I don't see why it's such an imposition to request that you drive me closer to El Azuzul before you book a hotel for the night. It's not like I can walk there on my own.
"The problem," Ixchel said, using her most soothing tone of voice, "is that we're both tired out from the trip. Are you sure it'll make a difference if we arrive tonight rather than tomorrow afternoon?"
Finn hid a grin at his companion's patience, knowing that Ixchel was much better at handling the petulant deity than he was. Good thing she was willing to take the lead with their brain worm, despite apparently being daunted by the human beings they'd spoken with during their shared journey. And here I thought that I was the only one who found human society exhausting.
Yes, the lost time will make a difference, Tezcatlipoca countered, then continued to rail about the need to find his precious mirror immediately so he could stop f
eeling so cramped.
The vet was doing an admirable job of calming Tez down, so Finn tuned the deity out in favor of checking the alerts auto-forwarded to his phone-friendly email address. He'd hired a hacker years ago to wend his way into various government databases, allowing the shifter to set up alarms that would go off if anyone searched for his various handles. More recently, while he and Ixchel had waited in the Atlanta airport, the shifter had taken the time to add a few additional notifications to his alarm list as well.
Which turned out to be a good thing, even though the results were surprising. Finn was still flying well under the radar...but apparently Ixchel was not.
"Did you know you're wanted by the CIA?" he asked as he looked up from his phone.
I am? How delightful!
Ixchel usually would have rolled her eyes at the god's self-centered exclamation, but instead she frowned and reached for Finn's cell to see for herself. Not that there was much to take in. The alert was remarkably vague, making no request for apprehension. Whoever had set it up could have been trying to pinpoint a criminal, to protect a potential mark, or merely to track down a teenaged daughter who'd run off to Cancun to party during her spring break.
Still, the notification didn't bode well for the fugitives' future. Not if someone was already hot on their trail.
"I don't understand," Ixchel said after a long pause. "The CIA is looking for me?"
"No skeletons in your closet, I assume?" Finn asked, trying to make his companion smile. "No history of international espionage?"
Ooh, that's a good idea! Tez interjected. I'd make a top-notch spy. Then, deepening his voice even further: My name is Bond, James Bond.
"Well, Bond," Finn said. "I'm guessing this means you'll get your way after all. Looks like we're heading out into the countryside tonight."
***
The trouble with hitting the road immediately was that Finn was adamant in his belief that he required a new suit of clothes. Sure, the shifter's current jacket was bloodstained and boasted a gaping hole in the upper arm, but Ixchel thought the were-jaguar really should have been complaining about the cavity that lay underneath.
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