When I woke, Quinn was still gone. So was the ring I wore briefly with him. I missed him. Flying with him was an amazing adventure. Feeling his energy. The warmth of his mane around me. Nothing could be better.
Four men have come and gone; four dragons have offered themselves. To be honest if I had to choose one from the four this instant, I’d be fucked.
It wasn’t that I lacked a preference for the influence — the Age one would bring over the world. I had a strong preference in fact. But I knew enough about myself to know that this choice of Age would not be based on the value of my preference, but rather on my fear of the other three. My choice would be to make sure the other three were not chosen.
The trouble with this was each of the Ages in question were double edges. Depending on which area of history you looked at, and from which point of view, each of these Ages were the core of great things, and also ages of deep evil.
Each of them excited me, extended me, created in me something new that was more than just me-with-him. Something unexpected and unique.
Ore would be the fifth then, and the last. He felt the strongest. He had the feel of certainty about him, yet tempered with humility. This trait belied his choice in body — looking like a teen-ager. His eyes were blue, like his brothers, but calming, and alluring — like the blue light of a bug zapper.
Yes, there was no doubt in me that he was dangerous.
I scrubbed my skin pink under the shower’s hot water and steam. Spent over a half hour brushing out my hair, while waiting for breakfast. Put on light makeup, a new t-shirt and fresh Levis. Thinking of Rome, I almost called Quinn to see if he could arrange a similar set of clothing which could also change into the battle suit Raw designed for me — but it was no longer their time. It was Ore’s time, and I felt it was his time even though he had not shown up yet.
Nothing attracted me in Tijuana. It was a border town and across the globe, most border towns were the same. Didn’t matter the border or the country on the other side. People wanted out, people wanted in, and then there were the people who didn’t want the others doing either action. This caused a barrier which built up frustration and fear. However, this was where the Cortez Cartel lived — the place they called home. The place Raw would be causing havoc tonight. From what I read of the article I would write late tonight, Raw would be involved in some serious calamity, carnage, and devastation. He once told me he ended wars, he didn’t start them.
The suite I was in lay on the top floor and took up a third of the floor space. Two other suites were up here, but this one was at least 3000 feet. Three rooms, a massive living area, a kitchen, three bathrooms and a huge balcony. What I enjoyed most was that it felt lived in, not all glitz and shine, but comfortable. I could relax here. Being in jeans and running shoes didn’t bother me at all.
Out in the living-room area, on the couch I found the suit that Raw had made for me, folded and ready for action. A thought motivated me to take one of the drones off the spine column they were hooked to and examine it closer — looking for some kind of connection. I found an opening which looked like my phone charger port. Taking it to my laptop, I hooked it up, like I would my phone, and opened the drive that appeared on my computer. Several video files were in this one. All of them from Baja, where Raw was training me to use this suit.
In a short time, I found myself smiling and missing him. Catching myself I shut down the videos, and deleted them from the drive. Then I went through the rest of them, cleaning them out, making sure they had all the room they could for tonight. I stashed a couple in a secure drive, being unable to delete them.
This wasn’t normal. In my apartment I had perhaps three photos which could not be destroyed. One was of me and my father. The other was of the three of us together on Christmas. The last was of my best friend in college when we went on vacation together. I didn’t feel like a sentimental person. But now I had five videos I didn’t feel I could live without. And wished I had some of Kane and Slate, and flying with Quinn.
What was happening to me?
These thoughts led to remembering I wore my other suit here, the one which changed from the perfect dress. I had the drones from it here as well.
Back in the bedroom I found the black and gold version of the suit and brought it out, gathering the drones and downloading the videos. Did I have any outside? I couldn’t remember. But I did remember recalling all of them before leaving with Quinn. Since I didn’t want to be lost in these videos when Ore arrived, I only copied them and filed them away. I could go through them later.
An hour after I finished copying them, I was tempted to look through them, but decided lunch would be better.
When was Ore going to arrive? Was he going to arrive? He had to know about Raw’s night, just as I did. Would he come with me? Or would he wait until after I was done with Raw, to arrive?
Damn him. I knew so little about him, and he wasn’t contacting me at all. Hammering my finger into the phone buttons to call room service, I noticed my left ring finger was no longer bare. A gold ring, shaped as two dolphins encircled my finger, their mouths open holding a seven carat diamond. It was gorgeous. Never had I seen anything like it before. Its appearance on my finger had the feel of magic and nefarious intent.
Then I felt him, watching. Turning around I found Ore on the balcony, looking out over Tijuana, wearing a white glacier blue jacket and pants, with black cloth shoes. Ninja shoes, I thought.
Unlike his brothers, Ore preferred loose fitting clothes. Outside on the balcony the winds shifted his clothing and fine platinum blond hair as if the zephyrs couldn’t keep their hands off him.
I finished ordering lunch, adding several things for Ore to eat — fish tacos, and a large Caesar salad. He didn’t feel like a red meat kind of man.
His glacier blond hair moved just from the breeze of walking inside, as he scanned the room, eyes wide and curious. He moved without words to my closed laptop, and placed his palm on the lid, and his lips curled with amusement. Again, without comment he walked into my bedroom, and a few minutes later came out, not smiling, but more wide-eyed than ever.
Ore was at least four inches shorter than Quinn, and yet he dominated the room, and me, if I’m going to be honest. Was his aspect magic? It felt like it; like all he needed or wanted to know about anything was open to his eyes or his whim.
I remembered him appearing young, but he wasn’t pretty — he looked otherworldly, and vaguely threatening in a way that made me jealous. Yet, there was a strong carefree feeling surrounding him, as if nothing in this world could touch him, unless he allowed the contact.
When he came out of my bedroom, I walked up to him. His scent aroused me. He smelled of almond, hay, and leather.
“Did you design this ring?” I asked.
“I found dolphin pictures at your apartment,” he admitted.
“You’ve searched my apartment?” I asked.
“You were with my brother when he was shot. I wanted to know you better,” he said, with no hint of apology in his voice.
Those who complained about others having privilege, would faint from his aura. His, however, was first generation privilege. Earned. Forged. Not given at birth or assumed. I remembered the first time I met him, in the hotel room when the gunmen showed up to finish the job on me and Kane.
“I wish to speak to one of them,” he had said then, with the same calm assurance — then he stepped out of the room to talk to those killers, and came back with the same bland expression.
“Find what you wanted to know?” Slate had asked.
“No, not really. Kane put too much value on them, again.”
Remembering that moment, I now recalled that those men weren’t in the hallway any longer, or in the room, and I never heard their voices or their guns afterward. They were gone. Just gone.
The memory centered me. This was not a sixteen year-old high school boy courting me. This was the eldest brother. Ore, the White Dragon. The dragon of ice.
“You look afraid,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts with his voice hitting me like a hammer.
“I am, a little. You catch me off guard. Your looks belie your power,” I answered.
“Would you like me to be tall and seventy with gray hair?” he asked.
“Why do you choose to take this form?” I asked.
He looked at himself. “Because this age and this height attracts the least amount of attention. To most, I am invisible. To the rest I am forgettable.”
That made sense. “I noticed you, and I remembered you as well.”
“True,” he nodded. “But then, you are Inanna. This is expected.” He looked around the room. “I am early. You have a long night ahead of you, yes?”
“According to a message I received, yes,” I agreed.
“Then I won’t bother you,” he told me. Then with a gesture of his right hand my clothing blew away from me — every stitch. The cloth spun and swirled.
Ore vanished, and I felt a cold streak down my back, and then my clothing wrapped around me in a new fashion, the t-shirt becoming a binding across my breasts, held firm by a gold circle between them. My pants returned as leather. My running shoes as knee high boots — gun holsters on the outside of each with 9mm guns strapped in.
The final piece came in as a long black coat, some call a trench coat, but this was more like the close fitting coats of the priest who was our guide yesterday. It only came together across my breasts with three gold buttons, but was long enough to conceal the guns on my boots.
My back was bare. I could feel the fabric of the coat on my skin. In my room I took it off and turned to see my back in the mirror. There, going down the length of my spine, was a white and Arctic blue tattoo of a Japanese dragon.
***
Black leather pants aren’t all that comfortable. I discovered a button on the gold circlet. Like the one on the dress Quinn had me wearing. Both of these had my interest as I drove in the back of the cab toward the center of downtown Tijuana.
The dominant thoughts in my head focused on the tattoo. That it was gorgeous, and I wouldn’t mind having one like it on my back, buzzed my thoughts — however, the feeling it was actually Ore on my skin, dominated my mind.
Was he just showing off, or giving me a demonstration of his power? Or the extent of his power? If that was Ore, was he aware of me, the surroundings, my thoughts? Could he hear my heartbeat? Or was he just sleeping on my back? He said he didn’t wish to interfere — well, that was a fail at this point. Ore was all I could think about.
From the article I wrote in the future, that Inanna sent to me, I recalled several street names, and in the middle of the matrix they created I had the cabbie drop me off in front of a bar. I had mental flashes of Raw being involved in the havoc to come — fanning the flames — but the real clash would be between the Cortez family, and the rising Tijuana members trying to regain their territory.
Where the epic center of this rage would be, I didn’t know, but a drink sounded good. I still had a couple of hours.
Our search for C-Source was still stalled on identity. The weapon was the Sleeper, or rather the means perhaps. From what I understood, the Sleeper could be the source of C-Source’s information. Hell, just with the greater awareness given to me through Inanna and the brothers I could deduce or discover the same level of information — like who was working for the DEA or other law enforcement and who was loyal to the Cartel. Such a focused question on such a small population would be child’s play.
I suspected that the problems became more difficult when C-Source didn’t know the right question to ask. Being unaware of the brothers, he would not know enough to ask about them, and therefore remain ignorant of them or any threat they posed.
I noticed the bar had the windows blacked with paint as I walked up to the door. Inside I saw they had shipping brown paper wrapped around the frames to further block the daylight from invading the atmosphere. This wasn’t a nightclub, it was a bar. What we called a dive back home. People came here to drink. Not to talk or dance or even find a lover.
A few of the men at tables at sitting at the bar watched my ass as I ordered two shots and a beer, then went to a table near the North wall. Their interest in my ass didn’t extend to motivation, or movement. Just looking, and then back to drinking. A small waitress brought my drinks, and I tipped her asking that she return with another beer in time to keep me going. She smiled and agreed to keep an eye on the level of my bottle.
Once she turned away I pulled out my smart phone, a small notebook and a pen from my pockets. I wasn’t here to get drunk, but to be left alone long enough to think my way through this story. From where I sat, there was no story. Not really. No answers ready for public consumption. When I had the name and nature of C-Source, I might be able to spin the details enough to bring it to the front page of something more serious than the National Enquirer. I was guessing this objective — unmasking C-Source — was the motivation for Raw’s actions tonight and Kane’s actions during the last week.
With Kane’s work in progress using the Loco 49s to create confusion, the Cortez Cartel should be at the boiling point and ready to begin a civil war within its membership. The growing ranks of surviving members, and new blood joining the Tijuana Cartel put them in position to take advantage of the Cortez’s descend into chaos when it happens. According to the article I had yet to write, that was going to happen tonight, here, soon.
While inside the storm of these thoughts, four men entered the front door. The bright sunlight outside illuminated the dark interior for a moment, and I discovered quickly why they kept it so dark. The place was more than a dive. My attention returned to the four men, however, and my spine froze.
The first of them was Berto Cortez, with his brother Nesto at his side. I recognized both of them from my visit to their home with Kane.
Berto’s dead eyes scanned the room, passing over me, showing no recognition. Nesto didn’t appear to remember me either. When they turned away, heading toward a set of empty stools at the bar, I found I was rubbing the button on the gold circlet between my breasts.
The other two I recognized from the Mexican food restaurant where all of this started. They were regulars for the meetings there, though I never learned their names. To my eyes they were muscle, and not much more, now or back then. These two took seats flanking the Cortez brothers, bracketing them; protecting them.
Most of the men and all of the waitresses recognized them. Most turned away to avoid eye contact or notice. A handful regarded the Cortez group with hard eyes, though none going so far as challenge. I got the feeling this handful were members of the Cartel. Subordinates. Waiting.
The room’s air felt thicker, as tension began to climb. The level didn’t climb until the door opened again, and a thin, tall Mexican man came in. He paused at the door, blinking his eyes to adjust them to the dim light inside. I watched, unable not to, but without turning my head, or freezing my motion.
I continued to thumb through my smart phone at the pictures I had taken over the last few days. This was a habit of mine, to snap pictures — the value of the object or scene is of little meaning. I’m a writer. The color of sand, the shape of clouds, the dim of a room, the luminescence of the moon. I snapped any and all of them. No one was going to find the clue they were looking for in my digital images. I took them as freely as I breathed.
At that moment I was not really looking at them at all. My attention was on the tall man at the door. I would like to say that Ore moved on my back, but the fact was more likely my skin crawled looking at him.
Even more alarming to me was the complete lack of menace about him. Other than being tall for a Mexican, he was average in every way. He was wearing a beige Salvatore Ferragamo Sesamo leather jacket, khaki pants, and tan boots. His clothing was worth a shit load— putting him in the upper middle class bracket, but casual, not business orientated like the brothers at the bar, who turned to look at him.
After a moment, the brothers turned back to their drinks and the two men bracketing them stood, and backed off to the walls, and took seats at tables there alone. The one nearest me was brazen enough to pull a gun from under his jacket and set it on the table next to his beer.
The tall man observed this, and then walked to the bar, choosing the stool next to Berto.
I stopped at an image, which was of my foot in the shoes Quinn picked out for me in Rome, making a note on the open page of my pad — it read ‘could have at least taken one from the side. All I have here is two black straps going across the top of my foot.’
My phone told me it was ten minutes after seven o’clock. Sunset was nigh. Any time after that I would call night. As in last night a war between…
“Have you found them?” Berto asked the tall one.
“Of course,” he answered.
“Good, then you will deal with them,” Berto said, focusing back on his glass of tequila.
“Hardly,” said the tall one, an amused note in his voice.
“What?” Berto growled, not amused.
“I’m not a hitman, and they are of no consequence,” he told the psychopath looking at him with more menace than I would need to fall in line. I had it from good sources, that Berto was not just a killer, but a cannibal as well.
“They are a threat,” Berto corrected him.
“Actually, they aren’t a threat,” the tall man said. “I’ve attacked them twice, sure of my target both times. They evaded both attacks, and in the process kept any bystanders from being killed — and yet, have not retaliated, nor even attempted to locate me. My conclusion is — they don’t care. Also, they are the stronger force. If we push this, it will come back on us in ways terrible to behold. More important, they cannot interfere with my function, which is information.”
Berto took a drink, swished the liquor in him mouth and swallowed. “So we just ignore them? That is your advice?”
“Yes,” the tall man said and took his shot of tequila.
The gunshot was loud in the bar. Deafening. The sound pulsed, then paralyzed me as the tall man fell from his stool, his body folding, his head cracking on the wood floor first as the rest of him crumbled down.
Berto watched the body fall, and crumble, while getting off his stool and standing, the smoking gun in his hand. “Then I have no use for you.”
Berto scanned the room, his eyes moving unhurried until they found me at my table, and there he stopped. Everyone else was known to him, or known about. I was a witness. He began to raise his gun, when the door opened, and a tall Mexican man, wearing a beige Salvatore Ferragamo Sesamo leather jacket, khaki pants, and tan boots, stepped into the bar. He stopped by the door, blinking his eyes, to adjust to the dim light. He looked around the room, and then walked toward Berto.
“Was that really necessary, Berto? I’m trying to bring you up to the next level of power and control, and all you have is childish shit to offer me. Did you really believe you out class me? That there is anything in that Neanderthal head of yours which threatens me?” the tall man said.
With Berto, I looked to the floor, where a large bloodstain soaked the wood and sawdust, but a body could not be found.
The tall man walked up close to Berto. “Want to shoot me again? Or can we talk now?
I was on the fence with this one. Part of me thought shooting him again and running like hell was the best option. Instead, the realist in me gathered up my things and headed for the door before Berto decided to shoot me.
“Don’t leave on our account Miss,” the tall man said as I came close to the door.
This sounded like gallows humor to me, and so I ignored it, and got myself through the door, closing it behind me and dodging traffic to get myself across the street.