The Hellion

by S. A. Hunt

  “Write me a ticket.”

  She headed up front and stood between the front seats, leaning on them as if she were a starship captain. Claw marks on her face and ass had been healed by the curandero, but the blood had dried in long painted strands. Kenway and Carly sat in the breakfast nook, a belt of gauze wrapped around the veteran’s middle.

  Gendreau shuffled out of the bedroom, pushing fallen food cans with his feet. He raked them down the door well and out into the night.

  “Hey,” said Robin. “I was going to eat that.”

  “Be my guest, Rambo.”

  Licking her lips thoughtfully, she showed him her middle finger.

  The curandero shook his head and went back to pushing the cans outside. “You like it, don’t you?” he asked. “It’s why you agreed to help the Valenzuelas.”

  “Like what?”

  “Fighting!” Gendreau toed a can of beans into the darkness. Cleaned of cans, the carpet was soiled with leaking food. “The vigilante thing! You’re like a Viking battle maiden or something, addicted to war. Look at you; you’re all dewy and cranked up now. You love it. You were out here gunning down werewolves to AC/DC and Queen. You love it.”

  “I guess I do.”

  Gendreau sighed wearily.

  “What do you expect?” she added. “You know what my father is. Heinrich raised me to be a weapon, didn’t he? The perfect witch-killing machine.” Robin shook her head and stared out the windshield. “Other than YouTube, it’s all I know.”

  “Oh, get off your own dick, Billy Badass,” said Gendreau. He reached outside and shut the door, cutting off the blustering wind. “One of the things I liked about you when I met you was how even after all the shit you went through, you weren’t one of these angsty suffering-hero emo types.” Gendreau searched through cabinets. “Yeah, you wear a lot of black, but you didn’t feel sorry for yourself. You had rage, but it was a happy rage, a purposeful rage.”

  She shrugged with a pinched smile.

  “It’s taking you over and you’re enjoying it.”

  “The broom is in the bathroom closet,” said Kenway.

  “Thanks.” Gendreau fetched the broom, which he swept the kitchen floor with. “I dunno,” he said. “Guess I just can’t help but notice a difference ever since you found out about your father, Andras, and it’s worrying, is all. I don’t want you becoming self-destructive.”

  “Your concern is duly noted,” Robin replied, perhaps a bit colder than she intended it to be.

  The curandero said nothing.

  “What does he mean about your father?” asked Carly.

  “My dad is an owl-headed demon named Andras.” Robin sat next to Kenway in the nook. “It’s on my YouTube channel. I thought you watched my videos.”

  “Only a few of them.” Carly stared. “Your dad is a demon?”

  “Yup.”

  The girl stared at her hands. “Guess we’ve got something in common, then.”

  “No.” Robin took Carly’s hands and squeezed them. “You can’t change a demon. They’re pure fuckin’ evil. But your dad—something’s taken him over. Something in that motorcycle.”

  Hope gleamed in Carly’s eyes. “Does that mean you can save him?” She smiled. “You can make him the way he used to be, before he bought that motorcycle?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Please don’t kill him,” said Carly, her voice breaking. “He’s not a bad guy, I promise. I’m sorry about what I said earlier … I didn’t mean it.” She clutched Robin’s hands. “I don’t want you to hurt him. The bike. We need to get rid of the bike. You said it’s the bike causing this, right?”

  “That’s my theory.” Robin’s hands slipped away. “But if he comes at me like those assholes back there, I can’t make any promises.” They drew up into fists. “My throat doesn’t bruise as easily as your mother’s.”

  “It’s not the bike,” said Marina.

  “What?”

  Gendreau took out his cell phone. “Calling Rook. Hopefully, they’re still in Killeen. Their plane was supposed to take off from Killeen–Fort Hood Airport twenty minutes ago.” He pressed the phone to his ear. “Santiago isn’t backing off, and we’re going to need help. And if we confiscate the relic, the Dogs will want to take possession of it.” He paced back and forth. “Hey. It’s Andy.” He put it on speakerphone. “Wanted to see if you’d taken off yet.”

  “No,” said the Origo, her voice thin and metallic. “Flight got delayed. Tropical depression rolling off the Gulf, and it’s got all flights grounded tonight.”

  “Well, we’ve got a little problem.”

  “Not sure I like the way you’re saying that.”

  “Being chased by a biker gang called the Los Cambiantes. Their leader’s wife stowed away on the RV trying to get away from him; now he’s on the warpath. And he’s riding a relic motorcycle. Transfiguration. Using it to turn himself and his friends into werewolves.”

  “A gang of werewolves? Are you shitting me?”

  “What?” asked Navathe in the background. “Werewolves? Who are you talking to?”

  Gendreau put his cell phone on the table. “We might need your help. These guys are tough customers. We have a couple of guns and enough swords to give He-Man a hard-on—oh, and a grenade launcher—and we barely got away from them alive.”

  “Are you still in Keyhole Hills?”

  “No, we left this afternoon. On the other side of Almudena, heading toward Killeen right now. We’re still an hour or so out.”

  “We’ll head that way now and meet you.” The rustle and zip of bags being opened and packed. Navathe’s voice came back as he picked up Rook’s phone. “You say you had a grenade launcher? Where the bloody hell did you get a grenade launcher?”

  “Facebook,” said Robin. “I know a guy.”

  “Very cool.”

  “And very legal.” Robin eyed Marina. “What did you mean when you said it’s not the motorcycle?”

  “Santiago,” said Carly’s mother, gesturing with her hands as she drove. “There has always been a side to him. Another side, something mean. And, well, the motorcycle, it—como se dice, magnify that side, it strengthen him, work him up. You know?”

  “Yeah, I would say turning him into a werewolf definitely exacerbates his more violent tendencies.”

  “Guess I didn’t want to admit it before.”

  “Dad’s not that bad,” said Carly.

  “You didn’t know him before.” Marina glanced over her shoulder. “When he was young, before he made road captain, when we first met. His pasion por la vida, his lust for life, was part of why I fell for him in the first place—he was the take-charge kind of man, a leader, I think. Or at least I thought he was. When we had you, he—what’s the word?—mellowed out.”

  “Settled down?” offered Gendreau.

  “Yes, settled down. Becoming a father took a little of the heat out of him. That’s the Santi you know.”

  “Maybe you mistook a bully for a man with confidence and assertiveness,” said Robin. “Wouldn’t be the first time that mistake has been made, and it won’t remotely be the last.”

  “Maybe. And now that stupid motorcycle brought it all roaring back. Made it ten times worse.”

  “I still think he’s savable,” said Carly.

  “We’ll see, I guess,” said Robin. “The ball’s in his court there.”

  Staring straight ahead, Marina said nothing. A weary sort of determination came off her in waves, like she’d had the veil torn from her eyes and she was seeing the world as it truly was for the first time in perhaps decades. Hard darkness crept into her eyes, as if a sliver of her soul had evaporated, and, like Howard Beale, it gave her the aspect of someone who was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore.

  Something fell through the busted skylight and clattered across the floor. Gendreau picked it up.

  Pair of glasses. Flip-up sunglasses lens.

  Carly stared. “Those are Tuco’s glasses.”

  �
��Who is Tuco?”

  “One of my dad’s frien—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, the window over the table exploded in a hail of glass and a creature thrust itself into the kitchen.

  Flashing teeth like knives, a scaly green monster with a whip tail, like a raptor, a goddamn velociraptor, a devil-eyed chupacabra the size of a man. Robin snatched up the rifle and tried to shoot it in the face, but the chupacabra slapped it out of her hands. The pin in the stock broke, the AR cracked in half like a shotgun, and the recoil spring popped out, flinging itself across the room like a snake from a can of peanuts.

  While he was distracted, Kenway snatched the tomahawk out of Carly’s hands and chopped Tuco’s tail off with one hard executioner thunk!

  Red blood squirted out of the chopped-off tail lying on the table like an obscene Thanksgiving dinner. With an ear-splitting screech, Tuco threw himself into the back hallway in an attempt to escape.

  Drawing the short sword out of its scabbard, Robin followed Tuco into the bedroom. The chupacabra was on his way out the back window, skidding in the bloody bedclothes. She grabbed his foot and he wheeled around to bite her. She flinched.

  Jaws snapped shut inches from her face. Tuco’s breath was a foul fog of dead things and Bud Light. She retaliated with a sword to the chest, and the scales of his skin were so hard that it skated to the side.

  Serrated steel agony flashed up her shoulder as a claw raked the back of her arm. “Aarrgh!” She swung the sword at his big green face and it bounced off bone, leaving a red gash across his eye socket. Tuco’s cavernous mouth opened and a forked tongue slid out of a pore in the floor of his jaw.

  “Keel youuuu.”

  “Go to—”

  Talons caught in her ear and cheek, flaying them open, as Tuco slapped her across the face.

  Knees buckling, Robin let go of him. She barely made it to the other side of the bed before he flew at her, jaws open and ready to kill. An explosion tore the air in half and Tuco cartwheeled out the window, knocking broken glass out of the frame.

  Kenway opened the sawed-off shotgun. “Suck on that, chupa-cabron.”

  Enormous pain throbbed alongside of her head like a hungry hawk, sharp beak tearing into her with every heartbeat. She touched her ear and winced. Her fingers were sleeved in thick, vivid red blood.

  Glass broke up front. Marina loosed a shriek that would make Hitchcock proud. Pushing past Kenway, Robin ran into the kitchen. The windshield was smashed in and Tuco hung over the roof, clutching the steering wheel.

  “Let go!” Marina wrenched at the creature’s wrists.

  Storming through the Winnebago with a purpose, Robin almost made it, but Tuco pulled the wheel to port, throwing her to starboard, and she fell into the door well, slamming against the door and knocking it open. The night tried to claim her.

  Barely catching the frame with her fingertips, she dropped the sword and it clattered across the highway, kicking up sparks.

  The RV yawed back and forth like a pirate ship on storm-tossed seas, swerving across the yellow line and back again. Carly’s mother didn’t let go of the wheel, kept fighting the chupacabra for control. But she was losing it. Robin braced herself between the table and the counter. Carly clutched the table, screaming.

  Tires barked out long, warbling howls; dishes and cups fell out of the cabinets; the fridge opened and disgorged leftovers onto the floor. The scene was a swinging chaos of noise, a kitchen possessed by howling poltergeists. Kenway staggered up and pointed the shotgun over Robin’s shoulder.

  She shoved it away. “You can’t; you’ll hit Marina!”

  One particularly deep swerve and a tire exploded with a thunderous slam. The entire Winnebago lurched to that side and dipped in a pendulous bow, and Robin thought—she hoped—it was going to right itself, but it kept tilting, tilting, nodding like a drunk. The Tuco-thing slid across the hole where the windshield used to be, screeching helplessly, raking glass out of the frame.

  When the Winnebago crashed over onto its side, everybody was thrown against the starboard wall; cans and dishes followed, battering against their heads and backs.

  Lizard-gore rocketed across the pavement, Tuco shrieking as his legs were turned into meat crayons under the sliding vehicle. The cabin door was sheared off in a dazzling display of light, and blood sprayed a hot geyser through the open hole. They passed the shoulder and the blood became a choking plume of dirt.

  THUD! The guardrail of a bridge slammed into the hood, killing the engine and plunging them into darkness.

  * * *

  The only light came from the front of the RV, where the headlights projected cones of mist into empty space. One of them was painted in blood, creating a chilling red glow.

  Pieces of the cabin’s furniture, empty soda cans, very painfully full cans of food, broken dishes, garbage from the bin, medieval weaponry. Robin lay submerged in a pile of debris. “Everybody okay?” she asked, her words slurred by a fat lip. She struggled to sit up. A dozen bruises and cuts blanketed her in three different types of pain. Her face felt like she’d gone a dozen rounds with Muhammad Ali.

  One of the swords lay next to her. Miracle she wasn’t impaled on it. Kenway grunted somewhere to her left.

  “Doc?” she asked.

  “Think my fucking arm is broken.” The curandero shifted and debris fell over with a clatter. “My ring. Where’s my ring?”

  “Mamaaaaaa!”

  Carly screaming.

  Rolling over, Robin clambered to her feet and made her way around the front seat. The teenager was bent double through the remains of the windshield, holding something up.

  The only thing between Marina and a long plunge into a rocky crevice was her daughter Carly, their hands clutching each other. A lightless void yawned beneath them as if they stood at the edge of the world.

  Here there be monsters.

  “Hold on, Mama,” said Carly. “Somebody help me! Please!”

  Robin crouched over Carly’s back and reached for Marina. “Here, give me your other hand,” she said, grabbing meaningfully at the air. The woman grasped Robin’s wrist, and Robin grasped hers.

  Something stirred just to their left.

  Pinned between the end of the guardrail and the Winnebago’s grille, jammed into the engine, was the scaly chupacabra. The transfigured biker was ruined, hanging half out of the tangle of metal, only his hideous raptor face and one arm free. Tuco realized they were within reach and he reached slowly, languidly, for Robin’s face.

  Wicked sickle-claws scraped down the hood as he tried to find purchase and pull himself closer. Fresh blood poured across the crinkled metal. He coughed and the sound deteriorated into a bestial hiss. Robin hunkered lower, straining to lift Marina, and the talons came up a few inches short.

  Safety glass crackled under her knee. Robin grabbed Marina with both hands and tried to deadlift the woman, trembling, her biceps burning.

  Hooks dug into her shoulder. Tuco had her. Sharp points pierced her skin. Too much, too sharp. Her skin gave like wet paper and his claws clapped uselessly against the hood. He pulled himself closer, rib-bones grinding audibly.

  Blood from the holes in her shoulder ran down her arm, greasing her hands. Marina started to slip.

  “No, no-no-no!” Robin shouted.

  Carly knotted a hand in her mother’s shirt, grabbing the waist of her jeans. Tuco reached out again, one talon inches from Robin’s eye.

  “Got youuu,” he rasped proudly.

  A giant blond-haired fist reached in and took hold of the lizard-thing’s wrist. “You ain’t got shit, son.” Kenway straddled Robin’s back, pulling Tuco’s arm. The monster screamed in pain as bones broke and muscles tore. New blood rushed down the sidelong hood, spraying the women. Kenway dragged what was left of Tuco out of the guardrail and let him fall.

  The scaly torso dropped away, dwindling into the shadows, and hit the rocks three full seconds later. Splat.

  “Here.” Kenway reached over Robin.


  This caused him to put his weight on her. She felt her center of balance tip toward the windshield hole. “Get off me! You’re gonna make me fall!”

  He climbed off and tried to sidle in next to her, between her body and the dash, but the space was too small. “Hold on,” he told her, and wrapped his arms around her as if he was giving her the Heimlich maneuver. “I’ll pull you; you pull her.” His prosthetic leg thumped against her hip and he straddled her again.

  His massive arms squeezed the breath out of her. She couldn’t speak, but she didn’t let go of Marina’s arm. Slippery blood. Marina kept sliding. The woman muttered a prayer in Spanish. The look in her maple-brown eyes was unmistakable—the elder Valenzuela was topped off with fear, one-hundred-percent filled with terror.

  “I’m losing her.” Robin clawed for a better grip.

  Underneath her, Carly couldn’t stand up to get leverage, so all of the woman’s weight was on Robin’s arms.

  The girl grunted. “Got her shirt.”

  Marina’s hands squirted through Robin’s, dropping all her weight on Carly. Unbalanced, Robin headbutted Kenway in the chin.

  “Unnh!” he said, staggering.

  Buttons raked off in a rapid-fire pop-pop-pop-pop. “Mama, I got you, Mama, I got you.” The teenager’s fists were balled up in the collar of Marina’s shirt and her mother hung precariously, her shoulders scrunched up to her ears.

  Stitches ripped. Robin crouched over Carly again, reaching for her.

  When Marina put her arms up to grab at Robin’s hands, it took all the torque off her armpits, and she slid right out of the sleeves, easy-peasy, leaving her daughter holding an empty shirt. They watched with stomach-turning horror as Marina Valenzuela plummeted into the canyon.

  Track 17

  The scene played out in slow motion, every second of it: the woman’s eyes widening in realization, her mouth frozen in a shocked O. Her shriek was a saber across violin strings. Hands and feet pedaled uselessly at the air.

  “No!” screamed Carly, struggling. Robin only held her tighter. “Mama!”