The Dead Run (10 page)

 

CHAPTER 15

T
he sound of Kurt Knowles's approaching motorcade shook Seth from his reverie. He rose from the wicker couch, the room still pungent with the lingering scents of the sheriff and the Cantwell woman—his aftershave, cheap and sharp and liberally applied, and her perfume, expensive, subtle, a touch daubed behind each ear.

Both smells were lies. Disguises. Masks applied without the slightest thought, the most cursory reflection. That was the human condition, Seth mused: one coat of paint slapped over another, until no one could remember what they were trying so desperately to cover in the first place. Man's true nature, his entire history, suffocating beneath it all.

Such a hideous sound, those bikes. Such coarse, filthy men they bore. But like everyone with whom he dealt, the True Natives served a purpose. And like everyone with whom he dealt, Seth had molded them to it. Just as his father had molded him.

Seth flashed on the last memory he had of Cucuy in the flesh. As a child, he had only seen his father once every few months; the rest of the time Seth lived with the family of one of Cucuy's minions—an Ojos Negros guard whose wife and six children treated their charge with fear and deference, until Seth's desire for affection curdled and their fears grew justified.

He was fifteen when Cucuy last summoned him; by then the hallowed lair was the only place he felt at home. There, he was not el demonio, as the local children whispered, but a luminous being, an inheritor of sacred mysteries.

It was in the library, beneath flickering candlelight that transformed the cobwebs' thin filaments into thick, quivering nets, that Cucuy had ordered him forth into the wilderness of the world, to forge a port for the ship that would come. It was there that the Ancient One finally spoke to Seth of his destiny.

It may take five years or fifty,
Cucuy breathed, in that voice that seemed to emanate from inside your own head. He grazed Seth's soft, flushed cheek with two long fingers—a wholly unprecedented act of affection, and the first time in the boy's memory that anyone had touched him except in violence or for money.
But in the fullness of time, you shall usher the Holy Line of Priests into a new age. Until the moment grows ripe, conceal your past, your motives. Burn down the life you have led, my son, and rise in power from its ashes.

Whether Cucuy meant it literally, Seth had not been sure. But he set fire to the house that very night. Walked into the desert as the collapsing roof silenced the screams, and felt nothing but the warm glow of his father's approval, every bit as palpable as the caress of Cucuy's fingers against his cheek.

Now Seth rose and walked to the door to receive Kurt Knowles. He had spent years on the biker: turned him from a drug-addled thug into an ideologue, purged his organization of threats, meted out rewards and discipline with the same heavy hand. Most people were simple, when it came down to it. You probed until you found the knotted tumor of trauma inside them, then fashioned it into a joystick with which they could be controlled. More often than not, that trauma lay so close to the surface you could practically smell it on the person's breath.

Kurt Knowles, for instance, had grown up without a father.

Game over.

The Natives had only just passed through the gate. Seth could tell by the pitch of their tires against the ground—though he was half a mile away, in one of several small outbuildings reserved for his personal use, and connected by specially constructed tunnels. His senses had always been highly attuned, but now they were operating at a level that was revelatory even to him. As if every fiber of his being strained toward the coming strength, bucking against the limitations of the flesh like a dog on a too-short leash.

Seth peered out the window adjacent to the door, its beveled diamond pattern dissecting the world beyond into neat, orderly matrices.

If only.

The True Natives were backing their garish machines into a haphazard row, lighting cigarettes, popping the tabs on cans of beer. They had never been allowed inside. It didn't appear to bother them; these men were used to being treated like animals.

But animals knew better than to befoul their nests. Only since coming under Seth's tutelage had these barbarians begun to understand that concept.

He opened the door moments before Knowles's knuckles would have met it—a sound Seth could scarcely have tolerated. His sensibilities always grew delicate in the presence of the uncouth.

And yet, Seth reflected, he was capable of great carnage himself—of acts the men outside might find repulsive, even terrifying. The paradox pleased Seth, and he considered it a moment longer. The distinction lay, of course, in the purpose behind the act. Bloodshed could be deplorable, or it could be holy. A debased man defiled all he touched, even a doorknob. A godly man spread grace and glory.

Even when he spread it with a knife.

“Good afternoon, Kurt.” Seth positioned himself carefully on his side of the threshold and smiled without showing any teeth.

The biker's eyes widened. Seth seldom dealt with him directly, these days—the father grown imperious, remote. Like everything he did, it was a tactic, a way of strengthening control.

“Where's Marcus?”

“On a short errand.”

“Oh. So . . . you handling this month's shipment yerself, then?” He peered over Seth's shoulder into the dark house, a look of expectation playing on his ham hock of a face.

“No girls today, Mr. Knowles. But I do need you and your associates for something else. A courier is coming north, through the desert. I need him retrieved.”

He extended his hand, a slip of paper scissored between two fingers. “You will coordinate with this man, in case of any immigration or police presence. He is a Mexican federal agent. New to his post, but an old ally of ours.”

Knowles took that in slowly, brain hamster-wheeling inside his thick skull, then turned to look over his shoulder at the others.

“All due respect, Mr. Seth, sir? The boys, they have some, uh . . . some . . .”

Seth stepped closer, the arches of his feet bridging the doorframe. “I've no time for this. Whatever you have to say, be quick about it.”

“Well, Mr. Seth, as you know, the Natives been real outspoken about the wetback problem—them sneakin' over here and stealin' American jobs and all. Some of the guys, they're worried about how stuff like this looks. I mean, if word got out that we were bringin' this fella of yours into the country, or we was to be seen—”

“Are you questioning me?”

Seth's voice was like the cracking of ice. The sound jolted the True Natives into motionless silence—like children on a frozen lake when the first fissure appears.

Before Knowles could respond, Seth's hand was in motion. Whip-fast, he slapped the big man across the face, so hard Knowles staggered.

Seth waited for the biker to right himself, his countenance betraying nothing. Sometimes a father had to lay down the law. And when he did, dispassion was of the utmost importance, so that the wayward child knew he had been struck in justice, not in anger.

Seth always imagined his own father's eyes on him, at moments like this. And then a faint whisper of insecurity whipped up inside, a fear that he was a debased and shoddy mockery of the man Cucuy intended him to be. That he was flying blind. Self-taught, when he should have been steeped in mysteries that would have dictated his every action.

Most of the time, Seth was able to scoff at himself for such worries—after all, if Cucuy had wanted things to be different, he would have made them so. And here Seth stood at the precipice of greatness, the mantle of power nearly upon his shoulders. And yet, the figment of his father's judgment was so vivid—perhaps because Cucuy himself had been so absent for so long.

The wholly unwelcome notion that he and Kurt Knowles were not so dissimilar flitted through Seth's mind like an errant butterfly, and he crushed it in his fist. Unbecoming. Ridiculous. The son of man and the son of god shared nothing.

Knowles straightened, and Seth reached for his face—the hand cupped, the movement slow.

Knowles flinched, expecting further punishment.

The desired response.

Instead, Seth touched his cheek. Gentle.

The father is all things.

“You really have come a great distance, in a very short time,” he said, soft and thoughtful. “When we met, you'd never given a moment's thought to illegal immigration, had you, Kurt?”

“No, sir, Mr. Seth. You opened our eyes to—to everything.”

Seth drew back his hand and shooed away the flattery. “Ah. You give me too much credit.”

The Natives let out the breaths they'd been holding, dropped their gazes to their beers. Seth took his cue from them and let the moment pass. These demonstrations lost their vigor if they stretched too long.

“I will be in touch with an exact location as soon as I have the information,” he said, picking up the thread of their business as if it had never been dropped. “I leave it to you to rendezvous with our friend. He will be expecting your call. And for the record, this courier is as American as you are. If not quite so . . .” Seth glanced at the garish flag adorning his lackey's vest, and his eyes narrowed in distaste. “So zealous about it.”

Knowles's face flickered with trepidation, but it was a shade off: not quite the fear Seth wanted. He considered letting it pass—how thoroughly one embarrassed a captain in front of his soldiers was a fine calibration—then decided he could not risk leaving the stone unturned. Knowles and his Natives were Seth's boots on the ground. They knew the ever-changing vicissitudes of the border better than he did, and it would not do to have the biker biting his tongue if there was something new afoot, some difference in the equation.

“Something troubles you?” he asked, dropping his volume, inviting Knowles to speak without the others hearing. Lowering the stakes. Letting him know he did not have to worry about reprisal.

“It's just that . . . well, your couriers, Mr. Seth. None of 'em has ever made it across, is all. I was just thinking that maybe there's something we could do different. Meet this one a little farther south, maybe, or—”

Seth closed his eyes in a long blink, by way of both acknowledging the statement's veracity and cutting it short.

“He must come this far on his own. It's too complicated to explain, but I have my reasons.” He opened his eyes, and wondered for an excruciating moment if he fully understood them himself. For all Seth's study, the possibility that he was unprepared seemed determined to assert itself.

“You are correct, of course. But I am told this courier is different. Stronger. A man of great moral fiber.” He treated Knowles to a tick of a smile. “We must have faith. Now . . .”

Knowles knew a dismissal when he heard one. By the time Seth turned his back, the engines were already gunning, the True Natives as eager to escape the compound as children waiting for church to end. Seth walked back into the cool shadows of the outbuilding and pressed a button mounted on the wall.

He took a deep breath and shut his eyes again, savoring the sense of heightened physicality, the greater attunement, that seemed to accompany moments of impending change.

When he opened them, a young male aide stood at the ready. Only the single bead of sweat glistening on his temple attested to the speed with which he'd come.

“I must commune with my father,” Seth told him. “See that I am not disturbed.”

The aide nodded, produced a key from his pocket, and unlocked the basement door. Seth descended the staircase, his footfalls heavy on the burnished wooden planks.

A single, low-watt lamp lit the room. The only item of furniture was a small hot tub, built into a wooden frame. It was modest in size, accommodated only one. But the model was custom crafted, at considerable cost—built to meet precise standards of performance more befitting of a piece of laboratory equipment than a relaxation device.

Specifically, it had been calibrated to maintain a temperature of ninety-eight point six degrees at all times.

And it was filled with virgins' blood.

Not all Seth's girls traveled south of the border.

He disrobed and lowered himself into the tub, sighing in deep satisfaction as the warmth enveloped his body. Soon, he would be in the presence of his father.

 

CHAPTER 16

A
re we gonna talk about this, or what?” Payaso demanded, breaking the breath-and-footfall rhythm the three of them had built up over the last thirty minutes, trudging wordlessly across the face of what suddenly seemed to Galvan like an alien planet. He might as well have crash-landed here an hour ago, for all he understood about this rock—its rules, its life forms. No amount of chitchat seemed likely to change that.

Leave it to Payaso to disagree.

“Save your strength,” Galvan shot back without breaking his stride. “We've got a long way to go.”

Payaso broke into a jog and caught up to him. “Fuck that, hermano. We need a new plan, me entiendes?”

Galvan whirled to face him. “Yeah? How do you figure,
hermano
?”

Payaso pointed at the box wedged under Galvan's arm. “That thing's a magnet for I don't know what. I say we drop it and book. The fuck's he gonna do? He told you himself he couldn't leave Ojos, right?”

“We wouldn't make it twenty feet,” Britannica said, and they both turned to look at him. “Those girls—those
things
—would take it, and kill us all. Cucuy and his servants are their eternal enemies. We're forever tainted by association. According to legend, anyway.” He lifted the hem of his shirt, used it to swab the sweat from his face. Dropped his head. Walked on.

Galvan and Payaso exchanged a look and followed. “Keep talking, Padre. Tell us what you know.”

Britannica was already bathed in sweat again. “I don't
know
anything. Not for sure.”

“Fuckin' speculate, then.”

“Fine. You hand that heart over to Cucuy's son, and you'll be opening the door to an evil that could destroy this world. How's that for speculation?”

Galvan flipped the machete in the air and caught it cleanly by the handle. He wanted to perfect his feel for the thing—wanted to make the knife an extension of his body, the way it had looked in that odd shadow he'd thrown.

Just in case.

“Pretty fuckin' vague, man. You got something better to do right now than fill us in on whatever it is you
don't
know
? An appointment, maybe? A dinner reservation?”

Britannica stopped, opened his water bottle, sipped, and sighed.

“It's an old Aztec legend, okay? The kind abuelos told around the campfire, when I was young. I never thought . . .”

Britannica trailed off, stared into the featureless distance, resumed.

“Once upon a time, all the gods decided that their brother the great sorcerer-deity Tezcatlipoca had to be punished. He was teaching his priests too much, letting them grow too powerful—so powerful they threatened the natural order of the world, and the gods themselves.”

“Walk and talk,” Galvan interjected. “There ain't no campfire here.”

And on they marched. The machete bounced against Galvan's thigh with each stride, playing counterpoint to his footfalls, hi-hat to bass drum.

“It was decreed that Tezcatlipoca be stripped of his powers and banished to a realm beyond the stars for five hundred years, so that the world could recover from his terrible influence. There are a bunch of different stories about how he was captured, because Tezcatlipoca was so terrifying that even the other gods feared him; either he goes hunting with his brother god Opochtli and gets tricked into entering a magical cave, or else Omecihuatl seduces him, and afterward, when he falls asleep, she binds him to the bed. There's also a version where—”

Payaso blew his nose farmer style, pressing one nostril closed and huffing a snot wad out the other. Endlessly charming, this kid.

“Damn, carnal,” he complained. “I feel like I'm in Sunday school. Get to the fuckin' point already.”

Britannica gave him a peevish look, but he fast-forwarded. “Before he was imprisoned, Tezcatlipoca figured out a way to transfer his powers to his high priest, to hold for him while he was gone.”

“Like signing your shit over to your mujer when you jailin', eh, homes?”

“Shut the fuck up, Payaso,” said Galvan.

Britannica fingered his water bottle, desperate for another swig but smart enough to resist.

“The god had to pass his power through the sacred vessel of the immortals: a pure woman. But the virgin he chose for sacrifice was the woman his priest loved—the woman he was about to marry. Tezcatlipoca wanted him to prove his allegiance. So for the next three days, the priest was in agony, weighing his duty to the god who enlightened him against his love for his wife-to-be. He's described as this tragic figure, this man doomed by—”

“Fuckin' A, Britannica. Only you could make this shit boring.” Payaso shook his head. “What
happened,
homes?”

“Finally, the priest made up his mind: he had to obey Tezcatlipoca. So on his wedding night, he killed his bride while they were ‘joined as one'—”

“Like, boning and shit? Damn, carnal, qué asco.”

“Shut the fuck up, Payaso.”

“—and then ate her heart. Sure enough, the powers of the god passed into him, and he was transformed in every way. The priest became an abomination, the most terrible creature ever to walk the earth. And when the gods saw what had happened, they were so disgusted by this perversion of natural law that they withdrew, washed their hands of the world they'd made. Left the whole lot of us on our own and haven't been heard from since.”

“Wow,” Galvan muttered, despite himself.

“There's more. Three days later, his wife crawled from her grave, the first of the Virgin Army—an unholy by-product of Tezcatlipoca's witchcraft that the god did not anticipate. Her will set against the priest's for all eternity.”

Galvan dropped his hand onto the machete's handle. “You saying she's still out here?”

The priest shrugged. “These girls, she's supposed to control them. That's the price Cucuy pays. Every time he kills one—”

“He gives her another warrior,” Galvan finished. “Ain't that a bitch.”

They reached the top of a low incline and peered down. Below, snaking across the arid badlands, was a narrow north-south road. Another smugglers' lane. Or perhaps the same one Galvan had stumbled on before.

As soon as he thought it, the kid's thin, flutey cry sounded in his mind. Galvan shook his head, trying to clear it.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's take the freeway.”

Payaso crinkled his brow. “You sure, boss? Easier to get spotted that way, no?”

Dude had a point, for once. Galvan weighed the options.

Bottom line, they'd never make it at the rate they were moving. The water would give out, then the legs, and finally the mind. If an even surface bought them so much as an hour, it was worth the risk.

Plus, there was the chance of a ride.

If they could thumb one.

Or convince a passing motorist using some other body part.

A fist, for instance. Wrapped around a machete. That could be compelling.

“We'll chance it,” he decided, and the trio ambled down the bluff. As soon as they hit the smugglers' lane, their speed increased. It wasn't just that the terrain was easier, thought Galvan. The road gave them a psychological boost: imposed a sense of direction, implied the existence of civilization.

“So Cucuy's the priest?” Galvan asked a quarter mile later.

Britannica didn't answer for a minute, maybe two. Galvan scanned the land, wondering how many holes, how many girls.

How many Righteous Messengers.

“In theory,” the con man said at last. “According to legend, the priest's hatred of the god only grew as his power did. He swore never to return that power—to keep Tezcatlipoca trapped in the netherworld forever, as a punishment for robbing him of his beloved. But the priest's body was not immortal. Eventually, over hundreds of years, it would begin to fail. If Cucuy is the priest, he's a pale shadow of his former self. The legends tell of a creature so ruthless, so fearsome—”

Britannica broke off, shuddering even as the sweat trickled down his neck.

A sick feeling was blooming in the pit of Galvan's stomach. “If he passes the power to this son of his . . .”

The con man squinted against the sun. “There will be hell to pay.”

Payaso stepped between them, the tendons of his neck straining with exertion. “So
we
eat it. Like Gum said. We eat it and fuck him right in the ass.”

Britannica shook his head. “There are legends about that, too. Only the priest's descendants can assume the power. Anyone else will pass into the Dominio Gris. The Gray Realm. Neither alive nor dead. Roaming the earth, soulless and hungry.”

Galvan grimaced. “Like Gum, eh, Padre?”

Britannica nodded. “Like Gum. He wants company, Payaso.”

For once, the kid had nothing to say.

“Speaking of company . . .”

Galvan lifted his chin to the horizon. Chugging slowly toward them, in a cloud of dust, was an old, wood-paneled station wagon. It was straight out of the eighties, the kind of car Galvan's mom had driven Little League carpool in. Couldn't have been many of those still on the road.

Wordlessly, they fanned across the smugglers' lane, a loose triangle with Galvan in the front.

Like bowling pins,
he thought wryly.

And then:
Ain't got a moment to spare.

Ba-dup-bup-ching.

Don't forget to tip your waitress.

The car was pointed south, and as it slowed down, twenty paces from them, the passengers came into view. A middle-aged man and woman up front, both of them clad in plaid Pendleton shirts, both of them smoking cigarettes.

In the back, two adolescent girls.

The car pulled to a stop and idled there, spewing fumes into the already-unbreathable air. Behind the wheel, the man sat impassive, cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

Galvan turned to his companions.

His protectors.

Quote-unquote.

“Play nice,” he said, beckoning for them to follow. “Don't spook 'em.” He laid a hand on the machete handle, looped through his belt. Started to slide it around to the small of his back, then thought better of it. There was no real reason to look unarmed. Nobody was going to mistake them for a trio of picnickers.

Galvan ambled up to the vehicle, driver's side, trying to look friendly. The box was jammed under his left arm, as inconspicuously as possible. The machete rested against his left hip, ready to be cross-drawn.

“Howdy,” he said, darting his eyes from one to the next. The man was white but deeply tanned. Rail-skinny, eyes rheumy from years of nicotine. The woman beside him looked about the same, mouth drawn and pinched as if taking a perpetual drag.

They stared at him, jumpy and hateful.

“Where ya headed?”

“Family vacation,” the man answered, eyes darting over Galvan.

“That right?” He leaned low to check out the girls in the back and felt a chill tear through him.

Maybe it was a premonition, like Britannica said—violence lurking in the future.

More likely, it was simple disgust.

The girls looked nothing like their so-called parents. Or like each other. They stared straight ahead, didn't acknowledge Galvan in any way. A dirty wool blanket lay over their laps, obscuring their hands.

A blanket. In this heat.

Shady.

Galvan put it together all at once and reached for his blade.

The machete glinted in the sun, long and deadly. Galvan brought it flush against the driver's neck, edge pressed to skin.

“Get out of the car,” he ordered. It came out a fierce whisper. “Nice and slow. Both of you. Ojos Negros doesn't need any more girls today.”

A flicker in the man's eyes told Galvan he'd hit it on the nose.

And the click that echoed through the air told him he'd been looking in the wrong place.

Galvan raised his head slowly, until he was face-to-face with a giant six-shooter.

Trained, and cocked.

The woman leaned over her man, raising the gun until Galvan was staring straight into the small black hole from which death issued.

“Drop that fuckin' thing,” she snarled.

Galvan steeled himself, used his blade to lift the guy's chin a few millimeters.

“You drop yours,” he said, playing out the hand. Another great one.

Fucking Mexican standoff.

Although maybe here, you just called it a standoff.