Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (31 page)

“Of course they are.” August sighed. “I had my luggage dropped off here.”

The woman called someone in Spanish and a man returned with five suitcases.

“I had to bring
equipment
,” August snapped, seeming to think his luggage required an explanation.

“The branch office doesn’t have supplies for you?” Deven asked.

“I like using my own.” August nodded to the concierge, who wheeled his luggage to the elevator.

At the door to their room, August palmed the concierge a tip, grabbed his bags, and opened the door. He immediately threw his belongings on the closest bed.

Deven entered carefully, eyes darting to the corners and checking out the bathroom shadows. The carpet was a shocking purple. The bedspreads were plaid and there was a faux wooden headboard nailed to the wall behind each of the two twin beds. The beds themselves were separated by a narrow bedside table with only enough room for the massive lamp and a large-numbered alarm clock.

There was too much furniture for such a small room. Overstuffed plush sitting chairs were huddled around a large round wicker and glass table. There was a wicker counter with drawers and an old television perched on top.

Thick plaid curtains hung to the sides of the windows. Deven pulled these shut. He feared forgetting and having himself jarred awake by the unwelcome glare of morning sunlight pouring through the window.

August immediately began unpacking his belongings, so Deven followed suit. It’s what he always did when unsure of himself—imitate others. The technique had managed to convince most of the other humans living in his new home, Friday Harbor, that he was normal, if a little shy.

August had nearly a dozen tailored and pressed dress shirts as well as three complete suits. “You hanging anything up?” he asked, eyeing the paltry collection of hangers in the closet.

“No.”

“Good.” August grabbed all the hangers and began to organize the closet.

Deven unzipped his duffel and stared down at his two T-shirts, three changes of underwear, a pair of trousers, a razor, and his toothbrush. He hadn’t even brought toothpaste. He moved these into a bedside drawer, which opened with a loud protest.

The rest of Deven’s bag contained his weapons. He noted that August had placed a mage pistol on the bedside table, and so he figured it socially acceptable to place one’s weapons near the bed. He carefully unloaded his extra knives, some burning papers for sending messages to the underworld, as well as a sacred bundle of feathers, pieces of jade, a jawbone, and a segment of jaguar skin. For some reason, that had required a lot of documentation and negotiation with the Irregulars administrative staff to bring along.

Now that he considered it, he could have left it behind. It was really useful only for detecting the presence of his lord, but it had served like a talisman for so many years that he was loathe to be parted from it.

Apparently finished stowing his wardrobe, August unzipped another of his bags and took out a laptop with an external metal box. He set this up on the round table in the center of the room. He jammed the pronged tool from his utility knife into the box, shook out the small plug of skin he’d collected at the morgue, then pocketed the tool. Graphs started moving on the laptop, but August didn’t look at them. Instead he flopped dramatically back onto his bed, propped his head against the faux headboard, and started texting someone on his phone.

“You hungry?” August asked, in the midst of his text message.

“Starving,” Deven admitted.

“The taqueria a few blocks down the road makes great
al pastor
. I’ve never tried the hotel restaurant. It doesn’t look promising.”

“I’ll eat anything,” Deven said. It was true. He had spent most of his life without the luxury of gastronomic choices. Food had served the simple utilitarian role of keeping him energized enough to move.

Not that he wasn’t tempted by the smells he’d already encountered that day. Roasting meat, while conjuring some unpleasant memories, also made his mouth water. And he was still thinking of a fruit stand they had passed that sold watermelons. Deven had recently discovered a great love of fruit and wondered what something as large and green as a watermelon would taste like.

“Why do you wear that pen in your hair?” August asked suddenly.

Deven instantly reached up for the pen behind his ear, touched it, and let go. He knew it was absurd, and his therapist had been trying for the last two months to get him to forego it, but he couldn’t.

August’s eyes hadn’t left his phone screen.

“It means I deserve respect in Aztaw.”

“I thought Aztaws just saw humans as sources of blood.”

“They do.” Deven frowned. “They did. But I was different. I had a job.”

August glanced at him with a smirk. “You worked in Aztaw?”

“What do you think, I just laid around, feeling sorry for myself?”

August smiled and looked back at his screen. “With your looks you could have made a great gigolo.”

Deven flushed. “Fuck you.”

“So my first guess was correct,” August continued. “You worked doing something violent.”

“I was Lord Jaguar’s bodyguard.”

“Did you leave Lord Jaguar’s side to kill others?”

“...Of course.”

“That’s not bodyguard. That’s assassin. There’s a difference, kiddo.” August made a face. “Assassins are the worst.”

“You have no idea what life was like down there.”

“No, and it sounds miserable, so I’m glad for it.” August finished his text and eyed Deven. “If it was so awful, why do you miss it?”

“I don’t—”

“The report I got from headquarters cautioned there was a likelihood you wouldn’t leave Mexico City once you got here. They suspect you’re going to try and go back to Aztaw.”

Deven felt sick thinking about the possibility. Returning to Aztaw wasn’t as easy as August made it out to be. Still, if he was going to go back, this was the place to leave from. Calendars turned quickly here and allowed more options of reentry.

Just the idea of returning set his heart racing. But Lord Jaguar was dead and Deven had made a promise to him. He longed to return with suicidal hunger, but nothing remained for him in Aztaw anymore.

August looked at him, clearly waiting for an answer. But Deven didn’t want the agent to know that much about him. Deven was never one to hide his feelings, but he had too much emotion wrapped up in Aztaw to explain to someone who clearly didn’t give a shit.

“I asked you a question,” August said.

“I don’t work for you,” Deven replied. “I’m paid to give you advice on Aztaw culture and magic. That doesn’t mean I have to answer personal questions.”

August’s expression darkened. “Look here, pretty boy. As long as you’re working on an investigation I’m in charge of, you’ll answer
any
question I ask. It’s what you’re getting paid for. So—”

A knock at the door startled both of them into silence. August stood quickly and warily opened the door. “What?”

A nervous-looking boy in an oversized football jersey placed something on the ground. “A present for you,” he said, his words strongly accented, before fleeing down the corridor.

August glanced down at the object. “What the fuck? Maybe it’s a bomb.” This idea seemed to amuse him and he snorted.

“Don’t touch it,” Deven cautioned.

August rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to.”

Deven moved closer. At first glimpse it resembled a cheap knockoff souvenir of a Maya clay statue—the kind he’d seen in the airport gift shop. The figure wore a traditional grass skirt and was draped in jaguar skin.

Deven picked it up to examine it more closely.

The figure held a bundle of knives in one hand and a broken mirror in another. There was a pen in his hair. The eyes were closed on the face, but Deven recognized his own nose and the slit across the statue’s throat.

Adrenaline and fear rushed through him.

“What is it?” August asked. “You’ve gone white as a ghost.”

Deven thrust the figurine into August’s hands and charged after the delivery boy at a run.

Chapter Four

“Deven! Wait, God damn it!”

Deven heard Agent August’s footsteps behind him, but he didn’t stop. He figured the boy had used the staircase because the elevator flashed that it was still on the tenth floor. Deven jumped the last set of stairs and raced out the door into the lobby, catching a glimpse of the boy as he barreled out the front door of the hotel.

Deven charged after him, knife in his right hand. It was dark, but the city lights were bright enough to still cause discomfort. He charged after the figure, not stopping for anyone or paying attention to what was going on around him. He heard shouts and the charging load of a mage pistol behind him, which he assumed to be Agent August arming himself.

The delivery boy darted down a side alley and Deven followed. It felt good to run this hard, even though the mixture of adrenaline and nausea was familiar in terrible ways. The boy glanced behind him with a look of fear before charging forward at a faster pace.

He heard August curse somewhere behind and turned briefly to look back. August was right on his tail, keeping up, although sweat glistened on his face and his shirt was pulled from his trousers.

The boy tripped over a pile of garbage bags and darted to the right, slowing his pace. Deven gained on him. As they passed under a street light the image of the boy rippled, and for a moment, he looked like an Aztaw—glowing spine and skull visible under a thin layer of translucent skin, teeth gnashing—but as they passed back into darkness he once again appeared as a panicked, out-of-breath Mexican child.

The boy burst into a crowded intersection and Deven had to dodge to avoid being hit by a taxi. Car horns blared all around him. He bolted across the street and was clipped by the side mirror of another car. Pain burst across his hip and he spun to the pavement, a moment of agony searing through everything.

“God damn it!”he heard August roar. August leaned over him, offering a hand. “Are you all right?”

“Hurry!” Deven cried, using August’s hand to pull himself up. The first few limps jarred his hip, but he regained his pace, blocking out the pain.

He’d lost valuable time but managed to catch sight of his target darting into a night club. Deven pushed through a crowd of revelers awaiting entrance. He charged into the club.

And instantly froze.

He covered his ears, choking on a cry of fear. The noise was unbearable. A thumping beat reverberated through the two-story dance hall so loudly he could feel it in his chest like a second, frantic heartbeat. The room writhed with wall-to-wall people, arms in the air as they danced, their faces bright and then disappearing in the constant churning glitter of a disco ball, lasers shooting green and red beams of light over the crowd.

Deven stood stock-still, unable to process what this was or understand what to do. Seeing a crowded club like this on television could not have prepared him for the chaos of being inside one. If he couldn’t think with such an unrelenting noise beating in his ears, how on earth was he supposed to see?

 “Up there, on the balcony,” a voice said in his ear. Agent August grabbed Deven’s arm, just for a second. “By the DJ.”

“Where?” Deven had to shout to be heard. He blinked and tried to focus, but everything was chaos, shooting lights and flashes of skin and sparkling clothing.

“This way.” August pulled him to the right. Deven blindly followed, his heart racing. His throat had gone dry in the terror of the moment, but now he forced himself to calm down. The room swarmed with people.

A black metal catwalk formed a square above the dance floor and this was where a man sat behind two massive thumping speakers. Dozens more people crowded the metal walkways and stared down at the revelers. Deven followed August up a black flight of stairs, pushing past women in short skirts and men who reeked of cologne. Deven’s arm brushed loose someone’s drink and the person shouted at him in Spanish, but he didn’t stop. At the top walkway it wasn’t any easier to see, but August’s body tensed and he threw himself forward. Deven kept up.

At last Deven spotted the boy. August pushed Deven to the left and he went to the right. Deven forced his way through a crush of sweaty bodies.

The boy saw them flanking him on either side and must have realized he was trapped. He grabbed the banister of the walkway and swung himself over, making as if to jump twenty feet down into the crowd below.

Deven would never be able to find such a small kid in that seething mass. He threw his knife before he had a chance to reconsider. The knife embedded itself deep into the boy’s throat. If he gagged, the sound was lost to the pump of the music. The boy fell backward off the balcony and landed on the dance floor below with a muffled thump.

Chapter Five

Deven thought the night club had been packed before, when it had been full of young dancing couples. But now the place swarmed with Federales, embassy staff, and NIAD agents. With all the lights on, the flashing, colored lasers were less of a distraction and he could see just what level of chaos he’d created by killing the delivery boy.