Certain Dark Things(28)

“Mexico City is like any other city. The authorities can be bought,” Nick replied.

“Sometimes. And sometimes, when the vampire is the son of a narco like your dad, the authorities just want to fry you in hot oil. We are behind enemy lines, idiot.”

“Don’t you call me that,” the boy said.

He noticed that Nick’s fangs were showing and that his pupils were dilating. He was ready to attack. Rodrigo had his gun and more than twenty years of experience with bloodsuckers, but vampire bites still hurt.

“If you’re thinking of biting me, you better make sure I’m good and dead. Otherwise you are going to be in a lot of trouble.”

“You’re an old man, Rodrigo. I don’t think there’s much you could do if I took a chunk out of you.”

“Let’s see you try,” he said. It was best to push against the brat. Vampires delighted in weakness, sniffing out the lame lamb.

Nick growled, but Rodrigo could see that his impulse to attack was evaporating. The kid was stupid but not that stupid. Rodrigo hadn’t spent so many years in the employment of a vampire by being gentle. Goons working for vampires are not sweet and loving. Mind you, Rodrigo didn’t like getting his hands dirty, never had, but when push came to shove he wasn’t above cutting an *’s head with a machete.

The kid knew this, and if he’d forgotten he was suddenly reminded of it.

“Fuck you,” Nick muttered. The boy sat down on his bed and began rummaging by it, probably looking for candy. “What have you done so far, anyway? You don’t know where she is.”

“I don’t have Atl’s coordinates yet.” Rodrigo stressed this last word, feeling the point needed to be underlined. “She’s sneaky. But I do have a team of people assembled. They’ll be able to bring her in once we find her.”

“I still say we don’t need no stupid team. We should be able to nab a girl.”

“We made that mistake before, didn’t we?”

He smiled, recalling the look on Nick’s face when the “girl” landed a good kick on him. Nick was young and he healed fast, but there was no denying Atl had inflicted a nice amount of damage on this cocky boy. Atl was not as strong as Nick, but what she lacked in brute force she seemed to make up for in agility.

Rodrigo pushed away a bottle of soda with the tip of his shoe and walked around the bed, toward the door. “No matter. We should be able to catch her and kill her quickly enough, if you don’t f*ck it up by eating random girls.”

“Whatever,” Nick said, stuffing a chocolate bar in his mouth.

Rodrigo took out a cigarette and lit it, feeling the weight of it upon his fingers. He smoked and did not say anything for a couple of minutes, letting his silence settle upon the room. Nick looked at him, waiting. Rodrigo removed the cigarette from his mouth. A red-hot poker is always cooler than a white-hot poker. When Rodrigo spoke he did not allow the rough anger that had invaded him minutes before to color his voice, instead branding each sentence with a white-hot anger that burned even deeper.

“Your father thinks you are ready for this. I disagree. Nevertheless, he’s entrusted you to a task. But he’s also entrusted you to me. From now on, I will have total obedience or you will find yourself with more than a sun-rash around your mouth. Go back to sleep.”

Nick stared at him and bowed his head, a snake momentarily tamed.

Rodrigo slammed the door shut and stood there, savoring his cigarette for a good, long minute.





CHAPTER

12

When Domingo returned she had not woken up yet. Her dog was sitting in front of the closet. It raised its head and growled at him.

“Easy, Cualli,” he said. “I just need to—”

But the dog wouldn’t have any of it. It growled again. It was a mighty big dog, and Domingo didn’t want to end up with a chunk of his leg torn off. He sat at the edge of the bed for about half an hour, trying to muster the courage to knock on the closet door, before giving up and retreating to the kitchen. He set the kettle to boil, made himself tea, and went back to sit in the living room. He was tired and dozed off after a while. He had a dream that he was running. He reached a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, climbed it—or leapt up, he wasn’t sure—his hands holding on to the wire. The long barbs dug into his skin, blood trickling down his palms. The pain, however, did not seem to matter.

He opened his eyes and it was night. Atl was standing on the other side of the room, staring at him. Domingo stood up and palmed around for the light switch.

“How long have you been back?” she asked. He couldn’t see her proper, she was draped in shadows.

“A while. I didn’t know if I should try and wake you. Your dog, it growled at me.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Yeah. I can’t find the light—”

She walked over, effortlessly touching the switch. She wore the black jacket and jeans, not black, but a dark shade of gray. Monochromatic, like the panels of graphic novels. His yellow jacket provided the one note of color to the room.

Domingo squinted, his eyes adjusting to the brightness, and began searching his clothes. He took out the piece of paper the vampire had handed him and held it up. She took it.

“This is all he gave you?”

“That’s all.”