Rook

"Why didn't you pick up when I called?" Ice asks as I join them in the car.

It's dark outside, I can still taste Ines in my mouth, and her smell is still lingering in my nose. But thinking of her now will only spoil all that, curdle it, since it's time to do what we came here to do. Kill.

"So they're all in there now?" I ask, ignoring Ice's question.

"They were three hours ago, when I first called you," Ice says anyway, driving his point home some more. "But now, who the fuck knows?"

I know what he means, since the street outside is full of people and some of the Spawns could’ve left the apartment building unnoticed in the crowd. Women are talking loud and fast at one another, children are being annoying and men are smoking in groups that seem silent in comparison, but aren't actually. This city comes alive at night, but I never liked big cities. Not the noise, not the smells, nor the claustrophobia all that induces in me. Give me the open road anytime, give me vast empty plains, give me the beach and endless ocean. Just don't give me overcrowded cities. And I hate this one especially. Hate the memories of wandering these streets day and night, looking for Ines, looking for the love I lost, drowning in my own hurt and anger. I still can't let go of that anger. Not completely. And that frightens me now that I've found Ines again.

"Alright, we get the ones in there, and wait inside for whoever isn't," I say.

"That's what I suggested this morning," Ice complains, but I ignore him.

"The street's not too crowded yet. We can get into the building pretty much unnoticed. Scar and Ice, you go first, and secure the floor. Fuse and me will come up in ten minutes. And Ice, make sure you're not recognized."

That's always a danger when he comes along on jobs—and I don’t think he's missed a single one. All the men we're hunting know his face very well, and he does virtually nothing to hide it. I think he likes them to see him coming. It's a liability, but so far, we've managed to work around it.

He glares at me for a few moments like he's gonna argue some more, but then nods and opens his door. Scar follows him outside and I check the time, then watch them cross the street and enter the building. No one even glances at them going in.

Once the ten minutes are up, I tell Fuse to go on ahead and walk a few steps behind him. A kid is sitting by the front door and offers me some chicklets to buy. It'd be a good idea to offer him a couple of pesos to go knock on the Spawns' door and try to sell them some gum so they'll open it. And a week ago, I'd have carried out that plan, since it would make my job of getting into the apartment easier. I toss him a few coins and tell him to get lost in Spanish. Ines started teaching me her language before she left me, then I learned it pretty well on my own searching for her afterwards. I hadn't yet taken a life before I met Ines, but I took many since then. Involving this kid in it seems wrong now, so wrong I don't like myself for considering it.

The inside of the building is quiet compared to the noise outside. But it's one of those cheaply built projects, with walls that hardly keep the breeze out, and I can hear whole conversations through them as I climb the stairs to the third floor.

"We have to make this one quiet," I whisper to Ice as I join him by the side of the door behind which the Spawn's are hiding. I motion for Fuse and Scar to join us.

"We'll kick it down and get inside as fast as possible," I say. "I'm hoping none of them'll scream, but it's not out of the question, so we gotta be fast. I'll take care of the door, and Fuse'll close it once we're all inside."

They all nod and I pull out my knife. Ice is already holding his. I take a deep breath and think of nothing but the best way to kick the door down so it doesn't come off the hinges completely.

Whatever luck's been following me these last ten years, since I took up with the Devils, holds. My kick hardly makes any noise and the door opens wide. That same luck keeps it from slamming into the wall inside the room. Ice and Scar are inside the apartment in a flash, and I'm right behind them. Even Fuse hardly makes any noise as he closes the door behind us. It’s the Devil’s own luck, that’s what I’ve come to believe.

Three of the Spawns are eating tacos at the small kitchen table, and two of them are doing the same on the lopsided blue sofa in the center of the room. The world freezes to a standstill as we glare at each other, assessing the situation.

Then a piece of meat plops from the taco the old guy Scrooge is holding up to his mouth, red sauce splattering across the table as it lands there, and all hell breaks loose.

Ice lunges for one of the guys on the sofa. A second later, blood and meat and hot sauce—I don't know which is which— starts flying all over as he stabs him so hard and so fast his hands are a blur.

The sight is nauseating, and I nearly get stabbed for staring, as one of the younger guys jumps at me, a large kitchen knife in hand. But my reflexes are a very well honed thing, and I punch him in the temple before his knife has a chance to do any damage. Then I grab him and stab him in the throat, while he's still woozy, ending him.

When I look up, four of the five Spawns we came here to kill are dead. Only Scrooge is still standing in the corner, clutching a knife in a shaking hand.

He must be near seventy years old, and my guys are casting me looks like they'd prefer not to kill an old man, like they'd rather I did it. Ice is still not quite done on the sofa.

"Let's talk, guys," Scrooge says, and I have to respect that arrogance in his voice. He sounds like he thinks he could still save himself by talking. "I have a lot of money and I don't mind sharing. What do you say? I’m old. I don't got long in front of me anyway, might as well let me die of natural causes."

It's a good offer, but no Devil’s Nightmare member would ever take it. Besides, if the money's here, it's ours anyway.

And when it comes to killing, these tough, old bikers deserve it the most. Most of them got this old on pure meanness. My stepfather was a prime example of one such mean old biker. And if I don't look to closely, this guy kinda looks like him too. I have no problem killing a guy like that.

"No deal," I say as I approach. "We're all set with funds."

But Ice overtakes me before I even take my second step. He's already covered in the blood of the two guys he killed, and now he adds to it as he stabs the old guy in the stomach, again and again, before finally ending the massacre by slicing his throat open.

He turns to me, blood dripping down his face, and had I eaten anything since lunch, it would threaten to come up now. As it is, I'm never having tacos again.

"Go clean yourself up, Ice," I tell him. "We're staying here until things quiet down outside."

There's no place to sit that isn't covered in blood, so I walk over to the counter and lean against it. I'm not worried about the cops coming here, they rarely visit neighborhoods like this one, sometimes not even to investigate a crime. The noise outside sounds exactly the same as it did before we entered this apartment. No one heard anything, and someone is already strumming his guitar in the street, starting tonight's party.

The only thing I'm worried about is spending the next couple of hours with these corpses. And about bringing that memory to Ines when I see her tomorrow.

For all these years, I've used my anger at her, at how she wronged me, as my excuse for killing. Now I don't have it anymore. And I don't know what to do with this cold guilt choking me right now.

* * *

Ines

As I hoped, no one noticed I wasn't in my father's hospital room all afternoon and evening like I pretended to be. His condition was unchanged when I returned at just past nine, to change into my normal clothes, do my hair and makeup, and become Dama de las Flores again.

I can still feel Rooks lips on mine if I think about it, still taste him, still smell him, still feel his presence near me. Still feel the desire I have for him, and my fear of it.

"Oh, papa," I whisper, sitting next to his bed and clutching his bony, lifeless, yet still warm hand. "I don't know what to do. I found him again. The man I wanted to marry. You remember? I wrote you about him."

He makes no indication that he hears me, but I think maybe he does. I didn’t talk about Rook in the postcards I sent, but I did send him a letter a week or two before everything crashed and burned, asking him to come and visit, so he could give me away at my wedding. I never received his answer, Silvio took care of that. And I never did find out, if Silvio found me from those postcards or whether my father told him where I was. But Silvio never spoke about Rook to me, and he would have told me he killed him just to torture me, if he knew we were in love.

"I lost all hope that I would ever see him again, and now it's happened," I tell my papa. "He wants to take me far away from here, wants me to be his, but I'm afraid we're risking too much. He doesn't know who Silvio really is, or how obsessed he is with me. And he doesn't know I'm no longer the young woman he fell in love with and that I’ll never be again. Can I ask him to risk his life for me? He deserves more than I can give him. He deserves more than dying for me after all I've already put him through."

These questions and doubts have been whirling through my mind since we met in the square. They faded while we kissed and held each other this afternoon, but returned with a vengeance as soon as I left the hotel room. It feels good to say them aloud, to get them out of my heart and my mind. It feels liberating, even if I'm saying them to a man who can't answer and can't give me advice. But I think he can hear me, and my chest is filling fast with a sense of such well-being, peace and contentment that I think maybe he is answering me, is giving me advice.

Go with him. Be happy. You haven't been happy in so long. You were never happy without him.

And I don't think he's been very happy without me either.

"OK, Papa," I say and caress his cheek, smiling at him even though he can't see it. "I'll follow my heart, and I won't worry so much. We only get one life."

My father and me had a sad one, but he never despaired and taught me not to either. We were dirt poor and lost my mother, but we had each other and that was enough. I remember the wooden toys he'd carve for me in the evenings, unicorns and kittens, even a doll once, because he had no money to buy me the real thing. I also remember how he'd let me eat most of the food he did manage to buy or find, lying to me that he'd already eaten. And I vividly remember those few times in the last ten years when he told me I should've run away when Silvio brought his bloody and broken body to Cabo del Sol, so I'd come with him. Each time my father was lucid enough to remember the past, he told me that.

I should've done it then, should've run. But my father was hurt and I needed to see how badly. Yet these last ten years only served to destroy us both and make us both suffer. I'm still living, but I don't know if I survived them.