Certain Dark Things(26)

“Case cracked, then,” Ana said. “That still doesn’t tell me who you are. Or why you care about a random dead kid.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re with Deep Crimson,” Ana said, finally voicing her thoughts. It wasn’t like keeping quiet was going to make the woman go away. Might as well call a spade a spade.

Kika smiled brightly, her silver bangles clicking together as she tapped her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray. Deep Crimson, then, one of the five big human gangs who resided in Mexico City. Crime. It drenched the country. Mexico ran red. But Mexico City was spared the worst of it. Mexico City was squarely under human control, and here the gangs, the criminals, the pimps, they were people, not flesh-eating monsters. Heads didn’t roll in Mexico City, because Deep Crimson, the Tritons, the Maximiles, hell, even the Exorcists and Apando, patrolled the metropolis as much as the cops did. Back in ’92, some vampires had tried to make inroads into Mexico City. The result? Fifteen vampires burned to a crisp, their bound corpses a graphic reminder of what awaited any bloodsucker who wandered into this area.

But that didn’t make the human gangs buddies with cops.

“Yeah, I am. I’ve got friends who want to talk to you.”

“Fuck a meeting,” Ana said. “Piss off before I smash this mug against your face and ruin your makeup, all right?”

The woman did not seem intimidated. “We want Nick and Atl,” she said.

Ana was going to keep true to her promise to smash that coffee mug, but the words caught her interest, making her reconsider.

“Slow down two seconds. Who’s Atl?”

Kika took out a tablet and slid it across the table. Ana looked through several photos of a young woman. She stood with a Doberman in one photo, alone, and with a group of older women in another.

“She’s a Tlāhuihpochtli. The Godoys and her family are engaged in an all-out war. Rival factions.”

“And?”

“When vampires are busy killing themselves in other parts of the country, it’s a cause for celebration. When they start killing humans in our streets, it’s a problem. If you give these parasites one centimeter, they’ll take a whole kilometer. Vampires heading into Mexico City like they own the place? That’s bad. That’s very bad. It’s disrespectful.”

“I’ve got the case under control,” Ana said, wrapping both hands around her cup of coffee.

“You got shit and you know it,” Kika replied. “What are you going to do when you find Nick Godoy? Arrest him and bring him over to police headquarters?”

Ana sighed and touched the bridge of her nose. “That’s the procedure.”

“We are willing to offer you support.”

“If you want to cooperate with the investigation,” Ana said, “you can give me whatever information you want and I’ll take it from there.”

“I’ll give you what we’ve got, but what we want is them. Nick and Atl, and any other * from up North who came with them to Mexico City.”

“So you can kill them.”

“That would be for the best, don’t you think?” Kika asked.

“I’m a detective,” Ana said, though she couldn’t muster any conviction when she spoke.

Kika raised the corners of her lips in amusement. “You can’t catch them alone. You’ll die if you try. And I sincerely doubt your department is going to send backup.”

Ana knew it was true. She had been going through the motions with this case, but she was pretty sure that when push came to shove Castillo wasn’t going to give one shit about a vampire who killed nobodies. And if she told him this was part of something bigger, that there were members of two cartels in town, he’d assign it to someone else. Someone else who could claim the glory.

She was screwed, either way. As usual.

“I heard you’re a good investigator,” Kika said. “But you don’t have much to show for it, do you?”

“Who does?”

“You could have something to show for it. A couple of vampire corpses for your buddies and maybe even a bit of money.”

Ana shook her head, putting out her cigarette. “You mean help out a nice gang like yours?”

“I mean we could assist you and you could assist us. We can probably find these leeches, eventually, but we could use professional help and police resources.”

“I thought you had friends in my department. Don’t they have better resources?”

“Everyone has a big mouth in your department. But you caught several vampires. Even an Imago. It sounds exciting.”

Ana raised her cup of coffee to her lips, her hands surprisingly steady as she took a long sip. God, she didn’t want to think about it. The victim’s body … and the vampire, the Imago. When she’d killed it, the flesh had melted off its bones and she’d seen its true face. Dear God.

“I killed one of those,” Ana said. “But it was a long time ago.”

It was practically an accident, she thought. A fluke. Maybe it wanted to die.

“I came to Mexico City to get away from vampires,” Ana said.

“Exactly. You want them out there, eating more people? First it’ll be these two. Next, who knows? Four? Six? A dozen? Thinking they can just walk in, like this is their damn home?”