“Maybe I would,” Selena replied. “If I spoke any Mejise.” Though the truth was, she probably wouldn’t. She hated exploiting anyone’s faith, but if she was going to get out of this, she needed leverage, and their belief in her as some sort of divine representative was the only currency in which she was still solvent.
At its far end, the plaza branched into several smaller streets. Mary took the leftmost road and cut through an alley on her right. It was a familiar route, one that circumvented a long jaunt down Calle Molinero and brought them more directly to Calle Rey, where the best taverns were, according to Mary.
The alley represented a second Juarez, one easily missed in the crowds and commerce that frothed along its boardwalk-strafed thoroughfares. Out there in the open stood a metropolis, a great muscular heart pumping food and wealth and flesh through the myriad arteries that threaded the pueblos of the continent’s vast southern desert.
A different sort of city dwelled in its alleys. In here, plazas and cobbled streets gave way to labyrinthine paths, all but subterranean if not for the filaments of open sky running between the roofs overhead. Cobbles mutated into a hodgepodge of gravel, boards, and dirt. The noise of the street fell away after only a few steps, swallowed by the alley’s adobe mouth. The light itself seemed different, clothed in a grey-brown murk at once sultry and oppressive that settled over one’s eyes until torn away by the starburst of an interior courtyard.
Kiosks, shanties, and other makeshift structures clung to the wider lanes—some were dwellings tenanted by an ever-morphing cast of down-and-out blancos, their unmarked skin the only possession of any value to their names; others were businesses run by only slightly less derelict proprietors, dealing fetishes, votive candles, cigarettes, and other more illicit fare.
Occasional gaps appeared in the alley walls, dead spaces between buildings that inevitably collected their own small assortment of dwellers, a pocket village springing up inside the city’s stony abscess. Selena had spent no time in these squatter’s hamlets, but she knew by reputation that they were among the fiercest bits of real estate in Juarez, crucibles in which the city’s hardest outlaws were forged.
One such inlet appeared on their right. Its concave walls slumped into a curved and pockmarked floor, as if formed when some titan had thrust a colossal thumb into the still-drying adobe. A strip of canvas hung taut between two polls thrust into the building’s outer wall, forming a crude awning that deepened the cavity’s already sepulchral shadows.
The occupants of the hollow seemed well-accustomed to the gloom. They lounged on hillocks of landfill, nestled in depressions formed by the sustained indolence of a thousand loitering asses, their grubby fingers curled around bottles of smoky glass.
A stocky man with iron bands around each wrist made a bullhorn of his hands and hollered.
“¡Oye chica! ¿A donde vas? Ven acá.”
“Vete a la mierda,” cooed Mary.
A few men snickered at the exchange. The hollerer ignored Mary’s reply, his gaze locked on Selena. A smile gleamed within a thicket of matted reddish hair. He made a cutting gesture with one finger, and a pair of his cronies shouldered in front of Selena and strafed the alley’s bottleneck. Another two slipped in behind, cutting off any chance for retreat. Selena watched it all unfold, the rising tension not quite pushing her to action. There was a playfulness here that counterbalanced the threat, a gaudy jewel in the pommel of a dagger. It remained unclear which end they planned to show her.
The hollerer set his hands on the earthen bench and hoisted himself to his feet. He was a hunched, brawny hillock of a man, his arms and belly bulging in a queasy alloy of fat and muscle. His stride was lumbering and bowlegged, his squat thighs swiveling to accommodate his outsized upper half, yet there was a grace to his movements unique to the ill-proportioned, as if his body, in realizing it must invent a new grammar of motion in line with its strange dimensions, opted for an elegantly metered verse.
“¿Cuál es la prisa, bebé? Toma una bebida.”
He held out the bottle and shook it invitingly. Selena stared at him blankly, her disinterest a parapet from behind which she surveyed the developing siege. What she saw wasn’t encouraging.
“¿No hablas Mejise, hein? All good, baby, I speak the plains talk. Come, drink with us. We hear many stories about you.”
Mary stepped forward and swatted the bottle aside. It struck the dirt and rolled off, a few glugs spilling from its neck.
“Piss off, Krell. She doesn’t sell, even when the buyer’s dick’s not half rotted off.”
Krell smiled, revealing teeth like the gates of a city sacked and burned centuries before—slanting ruins rising from ashen soil. “Ugly words from an ugly mouth. Could be I smack some respect into it, hein?”
Mary pointed to her cheek. “We’ve got the marks, fool. Mr. Todd doesn’t like his investments mishandled. You fancy his partidarios giving you a talking to?”
Krell wagged a stubby finger back and forth. “For you, maybe yes. But her, not so. This girl disrespect Mr. Todd. Protection’s gone. She on her own now.”
“Bullshit,” said Mary. She spoke with a voice like clashing steel, but her glance toward Selena betrayed doubt. Selena could do little to assuage it.
“Go on ahead, Mary,” Selena said. “They won’t stop you. Let’s Krell and I have a chat.”
“The hell I will. Don’t listen to the asshole. He’s off his head with cockrot. There’s holes in his brain big enough to satisfy his deepest urges. Come on.”
Mary took Selena’s wrist and led her to the mouth of the alley. The two cronies who blocked her way made no sign of budging. She stepped into them as if expecting them to swing apart. They shoved her backward. Mary staggered, her left ankle catching her right shin, and nearly fell. Selena caught her shoulders and righted her.
“Easy,” she whispered.
Mary took no heed. She charged at the two men. They turned as one and pressed their back flat against the alley walls. She brushed past, surprised, and beckoned for Selena to follow. As she raised her arm, the two men seized her as one: the first locking her arms behind her back, the second pressing her legs together. Mary writhed in their grip, but her frantic kicks and wild bucking barely budged them. She unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse at Krell, reverting to Mejise in her anger.
“Se amable con ella,” Krell said. “Todd like her still. One wonders why, hein?”
A dozen men closed in on Selena, forming a half circle against the alley wall. Some drew knives, others unlooped hatchets from their rawhide belts, still others wielded improvised cudgels with bent nails or tangles of wire abrading their tips. A quick scan revealed long odds of a clean escape; even if she took them by surprise, one slash could open her from neck to belly.
“This don’t gotta hurt,” Krell said, unfastening his belt. “We take it slow.”
Selena flew at him. She hurled a fist at his nose, channeling force from her heels upward. His men would kill her soon enough, but she would go down fighting.
Krell’s pudgy hand snapped up, viper quick, and seized her by the wrist. He pivoted, throwing his considerable weight into the motion. Her fist arced downward, trapped by its own momentum, and carried her down with it. He spun her round and tossed her against the wall.
Adobe cracked. Chips of ancient clay fluttered to the ground. Selena slid down the wall, found her feet, and met his charge with an uppercut. This one landed, but Krell barely reacted. He threw no punches of his own, but simply cowed her with his size. The semicircle of onlookers gave her no room to maneuver, and he soon had her in a crushing bear hug.
He forced her belly flat against the ground, arms trapped beneath his suffocating bulk. Her new charm bit into the skin between her breasts. A stink of sweat and sour wine oozed from Krell’s pores. He pressed a clammy palm against the side of her head, forcing her face into the dirt. She tried to wriggle free, but it was like trying to burrow out from beneath a mountain.
&
nbsp; When the pressure abated, it left so suddenly that she felt strangely weightless. She scrambled toward the wall, fists raised, and looked to see what had happened.
Krell stood with his back to her, holding his pants up with one hand. His semicircle had split apart and reformed in a cluster around their caudillo. Voices clashed in furious Mejise.
Selena could see little through the forest of legs. She felt a hand close on her shoulder and stopped herself half an instant before clobbering Mary, who had evidently freed herself from her captors and skittered over to drag Selena clear. Selena went willingly and took a defensive position near the alley mouth, which offered a better look at the source of the disturbance.
A clutch of marcados faced off against Krell’s men. Though mostly unarmed, they seemed indifferent to their opponents’ weapons, glaring down at the knives and hatchets with contempt. In the center of the group stood Paulo, Selena’s first opponent in the Iron Circle. He glanced over at her and shot her a thin smile before fixing his gaze once more on Krell.
“La niña es una hermana del círculo de hierro,” he said. “Ella no será hostigada.”
Krell spat. He shrugged his shoulders as if bored with the whole affair. At this gesture, his cronies fell back, sheathing their weapons and dissolving into the shadows of the sunken annex. Paulo and the other marcados left the way Selena and Mary had come. Paulo caught Selena’s eye, raised two fingers to his forehead, and gave a small salute.
“Cuídate, hermana.”
Selena and Mary wasted no time leaving the annex. They walked briskly down the alley, taking a few unexpected byways to reduce the chance of being followed. Neither spoke until they emerged into the noise and bustle of Calle Rey, which closed around them like a mother’s protective arms.
“I’ll help you talk to Grace,” Mary said.
Selena turned. “Yeah?”
Mary nodded. “Krell’s not some ordinary gutter-dweller. He’s Thorin’s hatchet man. Todd may have thrown you to the wolves, but I’m not about to do the same. Paulo’s not always gonna be around to call him off.”
“I’m not even sure why he did it this time.”
Mary shot her a strange look. “Didn’t you hear him?” She smacked her forehead a second later. “Right, Mejise, I forgot.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“The girl is a sister of the Iron Circle,” said Mary. “She will not be harassed.”
29: Terrible Gravity
The air in the mountain pass was thin and strangely intangible. Simon struggled to retain each breath, as if his lungs were hands and the oxygen an oily fluid constantly slipping through their clumsy fingers. He’d grown used to it inside the bunker, where his work provided ample distraction, but outside in the moonlight, he became more conscious of his breathing and the subtle inadequacy of each inhalation. Occasionally, he would edge toward panic, certain that he was slipping closer to some terminus of oxygen deprivation, each breath putting him deeper in deficit. But time would pass, and he’d grown no weaker, the air no thinner, and his heart would slow from gallop to trot.
An icy wind cut through the canyon. Simon shimmied deeper into the crevice of concrete that he’d claimed as a makeshift camp. He’d found a zippered blanket of slick, insulated fabric and cocooned himself inside of it, which kept out the worst of the cold. No doubt he’d be warmer inside the bunker, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep there. It felt too sepulchral without the clang and whirr of tools to drive away any restless spirits. Better to be up here among the ruins, which seemed less ominous if no less forlorn.
Simon enjoyed the sensation of cold air on his face, regardless of its aerobic deficiencies. A landscape of purple-black clouds drifted overhead. Occasionally, the moon shone through the gaps like a child peeking through knotholes in a fence, throwing glances of pale light across Simon’s upturned face.
A distant sound cut through the steady sighing of the wind. Barely audible at first, it swelled in volume, a droning whirr atop the shuffle-crunch of wheels over crumbling pavement. Simon wriggled out of his sleeping bag and peered through the remnants of the building’s front wall, his body laid flat. A figure wound its way along the compound’s narrow road, wheels bumping over ridges of ruined asphalt. The vehicle alone was a pretty clear identifier, but the flutter of hair flowing behind her removed any doubt about who had arrived. Simon stood up and waved both arms overhead.
Emily brought the machine to a smooth halt next to Simon. She remained astride it, her left leg cocked over the seat. Simon grabbed the handlebar as if afraid she might drive off.
“Did you find her?”
“Sure. It was easy. She’s made quite a name for herself.”
“What do you mean? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.” Emily’s eyes darted away and back. Simon’s grip tightened on the handlebars.
“I need to know the truth, even if it’s hard. Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine.” Emily squirmed over her seat. “I mean, physically, she’s not hurt or anything. It’s just … she’s a marcado.”
“A what?”
“It means marked, branded. In Juarez, it’s something they do to servants. It shows who belongs to who.”
“You mean, like a slave?” Something cold and heavy landed in Simon’s belly from a great height. He staggered, his grip on the handlebars the only thing keeping him from toppling over. Emily grabbed his arm to steady him. She got off the bike and lowered it gently to the ground, allowing her to lead Simon out of the road and back to his camp.
“It’s more complicated than that, but yeah, basically. But it could be worse. The guy who bought her isn’t a flesh trader or anything. As far as it goes, she’s treated pretty well. No abuse, no chains, nothing nasty.”
Simon took a moment to digest what he’d been told. “What did you mean, she’s made a name for herself?”
“I had to ask around a little before I found her. I figured I’d get mostly blank stares. Turns out everyone’s heard of the one-eared Llanuresa. She’s a hero of the Iron Circle.”
“What’s the Iron Circle?” Simon asked, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew. If Selena was involved with it, what else could it be?
“The fighting ring,” Emily confirmed. “She’s been knocking out guys twice her size. Hasn’t lost a match yet.”
Simon nodded to himself. He rubbed his hands together, working the chill from his fingers. “Okay, so did you tell her my plan? Is she going to meet me north of the city, or…”
“There’s a problem. Marcados don’t have the right to leave Juarez. Anyone in a hundred miles who sees her is gonna know her for a runaway. And Juarez takes runaways seriously. There’s big rewards for anyone who turns in an escaping marcado. The second she steps across city lines, there’s gonna be half a hundred cazadores looking to drag her back and collect their finder’s fee.”
Simon slumped against a concrete pillar. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. Motes of color spangled the black canvas of his eyelids. The data stick in his pocket lurched west, extolling him with its terrible gravity. “So what do I do?”
“We talked about that. Right now, with Thorin in charge, things are running smoothly on the surface. Underneath, not so much. Her best bet for getting out of there would be right after a big upset. Something that threw the whole power structure into disarray.”
Simon waited for her to continue. “Okay. So?”
Emily shrugged. “So we cause one.”
30: Candle-lickers
Water dripped from the ceiling somewhere in the distance. Between that, the dim light, and the dank, clammy air, Thorin felt as if he’d ventured into a cavern miles under the earth. Even the sliver of sky peeking through gaps in the alley’s plywood awnings couldn’t dispel the image. It seemed fake, a clever illusion designed to lull him deeper into the abyss.
Thorin shook his head and dislodged these para
noid thoughts. Hidden or not, this was still Juarez, and he was still Jefe. He squared his shoulders to better suit the role and leveled Krell with the most withering look in his arsenal. The heavy man stared back, unimpressed.
“These things take time, Jefe.”
“I hardly see what the holdup is. We’re talking about one marcada. Are you so easily overpowered?”
“It’s not just one marcada, though, is it? If it were, you wouldn’t be staining your silk boots down here in the muck just to chat with me. She’s got protection.”
“Rabble,” Thorin scoffed. “A few serfs and rag women who kiss her ring. Hardly the sort to stir fear in your breast, I would’ve thought.”
“I don’t mean the damn fetish vendors and candle-lickers. I’m talking about fighters.”
“Marcados. So what? Put a little weight on their keepers, they’ll fold sure enough.”
“These aren’t marcados, Jefe. These are the absolved. The Brothers of the Iron Circle. They’ve taken her into the fold.”
Thorin pursed his lips. So the Brothers were protecting her now, were they? This was something else again. Though they inspired none of the suicidal devotion the santanistas had for their ridiculous death god, they were still well-respected—not to mention formidable fighters. If they had the girl’s back, she would be difficult to take care of without a lot of fuss.
“Leave the Brothers to me. You just keep your eyes on the girl. I want her out of the way, and soon.”
“Of course, Jefe.”
Thorin wasted no time kicking the alley’s dirt from his boots. Things were moving slower than he would’ve liked, but at least they were moving. Paulo and his crew could be dealt with, and Krell would be free to make his play. The fat oaf may have screwed up once, but he was ruthless. Thorin still trusted he had what it took.
And if he didn’t? Well, there were more direct means at his disposal. In fact, the more Thorin thought about it, an ancillary approach might be a good thing. Why stake your kingdom on a single shooter, when two at cross angles have twice the chance of finding their mark? He might get his own hands a little dirty in the process, but such was life. Leaders must make tough choices, after all. It was a particularly stupid truism that blood didn’t wash off. Blood washed off just fine.
Iron Circle Page 18