Chapter Nine – Cid

 

Dust and sand gave the gusts of wind added zeal as they struck the man. If the wrinkles and creases of his face had been any shallower, they would have been blasted away by the gritty air as he stared up at the ivory disc of the moon, and been smoothed into the face of a much younger man who’d seen much less.

Far below him, lights covered the dig site like ants crawling over a scorpion. By themselves, they were nothing. But each flashlight and each spotlight marked an individual who was working towards the greater good, towards all their salvation.

He dipped his head to the wind, cupping the flame of a small silver lighter with a combination of his hand and the brim of his white fedora. The tip of the white cylinder crackled as it disintegrated at the fire’s first touch, turning to smoke immediately. He took a drag off his hand-rolled cigarette, puffed the warm, cloying smoke, and inhaled it deep into his lungs. The man turned his face back to Luna, exhaling a billow of smoke. Something there on that pockmarked and cratered surface made him frown so deeply, the lines in his face seemed to turn into crags and canyons as he took another drag.

To think, humans had traveled all the way to that other lump of rock and back. They’d taken their first tiny baby steps off this planet, and stuck a flag in it, just like the Europeans when they’d come to the man’s world years before. Only, with the moon, they’d stayed away for nearly half a century.

If only the Americas could have been so lucky. He took another drag as he looked out over the construction work.

“Boss?” a man asked in Spanish as he came up behind him. “Ready to ride in?”

The man in the hat turned back, nodding, his eyes falling on his men. Black clothes, automatic weapons. They looked more business casual than soldierly. Except for their faces, which all held that same distant look. The kind of look only killers acquired after years of dedication to their work.

He took another drag off his cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it out with the toe of his loafer.

Behind the line of black SUVs parked in the desert, the lights of a small town seemed to adorn the dusty horizon like a small swath of the nighttime sky overhead. Del Noche. The town was lovely during the day, marked by the traditional architecture of squat, one- and two-story homes and buildings constructed from the local pink stone, alongside a ramshackle concordance of streets and alleys. So unlike the buildings north of the border, where everything was organized and planned. Here, the towns had spirit; here, they seemed to be an external representation of the people’s own multitude of beliefs and passions.

He climbed into the SUV, leaned back in the plush seats. The driver fell in between two other trucks up front just as two more swept in behind.

For two long years, the man had built up this land as he clawed it out of the hands of the cartels. Two long years of unspeakable terror and horror inflicted on the people who opposed him. The cost of each acre was measured not in pesos or dollars, but in human and other creatures’ blood.

And now, as he rode into Del Noche with his men, he knew what needed to be done to protect it. Being a leader, whether of man or creature, always carries with it responsibility. A crushing weight that settles on the shoulders of whatever person is foolish enough to accept. Not only must you lead your people into the future, and a better world, but you must also take ownership of the decisions none other wishes to make. You must burden yourself with the unspeakable, sometimes, and grin like it’s nothing heavier than the wind that had been blowing in his face moments before.

He spread his sun-darkened, aged hands over the white of his slacks as he peered out at the passing town. This wasn’t work he enjoyed. But it was work that was necessary.

Yellow, red, and green lights blew by to either side of the vehicle. Men and women and children crowded inside their homes and businesses as the SUVs drove past, whispered words on their lips to avoid the brujahs. Their fingers wove wards against the evil eye as they stared out through the windows at the passing black trucks, and they all mumbled prayers for safekeeping and pity upon their eternal souls.

Not that they had anything to worry about.

Tonight was about one man, and one man only.

The quintet pulled to a stop in front of the cantina. The soldier seated in the front passenger seat hopped down, coming around behind the SUV at a jog to open the man’s door. He climbed down, and men advanced ahead of him through the dusty street, throwing open the cantina’s wood and glass door for him. The cantina stood empty except for the soldiers. Bottles of liquor lined the wall behind the bar.

Stale cigarette smoke, old beer, and the medicinal smell of cheap mescal tickled his nose as he went inside and turned to face the man for whom he’d been brought to sit judgment.

A stream of dried and crusted blood marred his face, marking him from the nose down to his chin, and over the front of his neck. His once white shirt was soaked through with sweat and a collar of almost black blood. Burn marks in the shape of knuckle dusters adorned his split cheeks and brow, where silver had been used by his interrogators.

The leather soles of the man’s loafers scraped over the worn stone of the cantina floor as he came to a stop in front of the bloodied man. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, his nostrils flaring at the smell of the man’s shifter blood.

Juan Marquez. One of his better soldiers. The conquistador of Del Noche. A trusted advisor, now disgraced. A coyote shifter, and someone the man had once thought was good to his word.

“Wake him up,” the man said, his voice as soft as velvet wrapped around a steel bar. “Bring me a drink, as well.” He took his hat off and handed it off to one of the others flanking him.

A man went behind the bar, pulled down a bottle, and found a glass, as another man, assault rifle hanging from a tactical strap, slapped Juan Marquez’s face till he came around to bleary-eyed wakefulness.

Hands on his thighs, the man bent over in front of him, craning his neck a little to see into those tortured eyes. Well, one of them, at least. The other was so badly swollen from the bruising and cuts that it wouldn’t open. Marquez’s hazel orb lolled for a moment as it swept around the cantina’s interior, widening slightly as it came to rest on the man’s face.

“Sir?”

“Yes,” the man said with a nod. “Yes. Do you know why you’re here?”

Marquez went to say something, but coughed violently instead, fresh blood coming up from his mouth. Wet gurgling filled each cough as he shook his head.

“You’re here because you were caught telling others about us. About our world.”

“But, sir, I would never…”

“Shhhhh,” the man said, straightening. “Don’t lie. Don’t bother to. We have our own person on the inside, Marquez. They told us about you.”

Marquez’s good eye widened a little as he looked up at the man. Their gazes locked as Marquez shook his head. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about! I’m loyal to you, sir!”

“Ah, I see. Understandably, they would lie to me so that I would turn on a good man. Correct?”

The betrayer nodded. Clearly, he saw that his boss was seeing the light. “Yes, of course! What other reason would there be?”

“Why then would they give up one of their own, though, as part of the deal?” The man stopped, head twisting to the side a little as Marquez looked away. When Marquez didn’t answer, the man just shook his head. “I pulled you from that shit border town, Marquez. I gave you a home. You ate at my table. You slept beneath my roof. And this is how you repay me?”

Marquez’s eye danced in his head as if he were reading documents within himself, trying to decipher the truth. “I…I…”

“This is how you repay me?” the man repeated, his voice as much a whisper as the sound of a sunbeam striking a rock. “This?”

“Sir. Cid. Please, I didn’t do this!” Marquez was leaning forward now, straining so hard against his bonds that he almost looked in danger of dislocating his shoulder. “But why? Why are we doing this? You have to see she can’t be controlled, sir!”

El Cid’s eyes narrowed, burned black for a moment. Nearly a thousand years on this earth, and he’d never allowed any man to speak his mind in such a brash way.

“You think to speak to me? Of her?” Frowning, he straightened up. “She will be free. And when the time is right, she will rule over us. All of us. She will protect us like her children, force the humans to accept us.” He turned around, his eyes traveling to the face of every man in the cantina. “And when we are ready, we will press out from this place, and we will take back what belongs rightfully to us. No amount of treason from your likes, Marquez, will change that. Ever.”

He brushed back the sleeve of his white suit coat, checking the time on his watch. His eyes didn’t even flicker to the feather tattoo on his wrist. After two years with it there, it had begun to seem like second nature to him.

“Simmons?” Cid said.

“Yes, sir?” asked an American in English as he came up. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, Simmons looked almost as if he could be the nephew of Uncle Sam himself, complete with an M4 hanging from his side.

“Take him out to the hacienda,” Cid said in perfect, lightly accented English. “See what else he divulges, if anything. Torture, though—that won’t work. He has children, no?”

“A daughter and a son,” Simmons drawled. “Wife, too, I believe.”

“Shifters also?”

Simmons shook his head. “Not as far as I know. Human mate, kids ain’t shown nothing, not yet. Too young.”

Cid nodded. “Good. He’s a strong man, and won’t break. You’ll need his family for that.”

“What d’you want us to do after we got what we can?”

The man shrugged, white linen shoulders rising and falling like a momentary swell of an otherwise gentle ocean. “Make an example of him. Put him in the town square for all to see. Soldiers and townspeople alike must be periodically reminded of the price of treason; otherwise, they begin to believe the punishments do not outweigh the rewards. We should disabuse them of that notion.”

If Simmons was opposed to the sentence, he didn’t show it in the slightest. Cid even imagined his cold eyes glittered for just a moment. He turned and walked out of the cantina, letting Simmons and the rest of the men get to work. As he stepped out onto the front patio, he drew his rolling papers and tobacco out from within his coat, quickly rolled a perfect cylinder, and dragged the sheet along his tongue.

Inside, Marquez screamed. Screamed Cid’s name, screamed for mercy, screamed for his wife and children. Screamed for a future he’d never know.

Cid lit his cigarette as a cool wind came blowing in. He brought his head up from his cupped hand, the warm smoke pluming from his mouth, and looked out across the street to a little whorehouse, red light filling the curtains drawn behind the window.

Humans. Such trifling creatures. All they wanted to do was rut and eat and sleep and forget.

Not Cid, though. Cid had a vision that saw through to where the world was heading.

Bootfalls followed him out onto the wooden porch, came to a stop behind him.

“Do we have a group in place for Coal?” Cid asked in Spanish without turning from the whorehouse window.

“They’ll be ready, sir,” Simmons replied in English. He could understand the language, but it was easier for him to speak his native tongue.

“Excellent. Keep me apprised.”

“Of Marquez, or the dragon, sir?”

“Both, please. I’m curious to see what else Marquez lets slip, which our little birdie didn’t tell us about.”

“Do you really think she’ll come for us?” Simmons asked. “She’s been out of the game awhile. And, besides, she’s just a woman. Right?”

Cid looked back over his shoulder, nodding. “She can’t help herself, Simmons, retired or not. And, believe me, a dragon of any gender is not to be second-guessed, or trifled with. Hit her hard, when she least expects it. Perhaps we can take her out of the equation before she can become a complication. We have just over a week before everything is ready. Any kind of problem she can present us with is too much of a problem, no matter how slight. I won’t have this fail again. A hundred years is too long to wait for another chance.”

“Yes sir, El Cid. Understood.”

Simmons clomped away back inside as Cid turned languidly back to the whorehouse across the street. The dark silhouettes of the people moving inside, a tangle of shadow limbs wrapped around each other’s bodies.

Their limbs untangled as soon as Marquez’s screams began.