Chapter Thirty-Eight – Hunter

 

Kris and I both breathed a sigh of relief when Simmons was the one who volunteered to put Marquez down with Kris’s knife. Immediately thereafter, Kris tensed back up.

He’d stood against him almost tenderly, his mouth moving quickly as he repeated the same words over and over again, like a litany or a prayer. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry.”

“Jesus,” I breathed as we slipped down a dark alley to the rear of the cantina, where Simmons had his pickup parked. He’d effortlessly slipped the knife up between Marquez’s exposed ribs and went right through to the shifter’s heart. In the end, the shifter hadn’t jumped, jolted, or even made a noise. Instead, his whole body seemed to sigh with relief as life left him.

“Here’s my baby,” Simmons said, going over to the pickup. His assault shotgun hung down from his back on a sling, and he leaned forward as he began to pick at the contents of the bed as he rearranged its contents. “Got a tarp back here. Figured we can cover you two and ride right out of town. Any kind of checkpoints, they’ll just wave us through, won’t even bother with the back.”

Beside me, Kris drew her pistol when she was still three or four good strides away from our contact.

“Kris?” I asked. “What are you—?”

Simmons turned at the sound of the gun clearing her holster, his hands already moving to bring his shotgun up.

“All right, Simmons,” she said in a harsh whisper, “careful there.”

A glare spread on Simmons’s face as he looked Kris up and down. “What the fuck, Cole? Thought we was on the same side.”

“We are. More or less. First you’ve gotta answer a couple questions, though.”

“Like fucking what?”

“Why were you so damn willing to kill Marquez?”

“Motherfucker out there?” he asked, rolling his eyes. “Why the fuck should you care? Ain’t it enough he’s out of his damn misery?”

She shook her head. “Not quite. You kept apologizing. Why?”

Simmons sighed as a look of shame came over his face. All of his features, even his broad shoulders, seemed to sag. He leaned back against the pickup, sending it rocking on its springs with his big frame. He looked up at us from beneath big, shaggy eyebrows as he ran a hand back over his short-cropped hair.

“Wanna know the truth?”

“I think that’s likely why she has a pistol drawn on you.”

Simmons shot me a look. “I did it, okay?”

“You?” Kris breathed.

“It was either that or end up just like him. Someone in your organization leaked a codename, and the big boss, Cid, immediately thought it was Marquez.”

“Coyote. Yeah.”

Simmons sighed, nodding. “Would’ve come up with something else, you know, if I’d thought it would get someone else killed. There’s some real pieces of shit in here, but Marquez wasn’t one of them.”

“You said you did it?”

He looked down at his hands in horror. “Cid made me skin him myself.” He paused, swallowed. “With his family there.”

“Fuck,” I breathed. “Why’d you do it?”

“It was either him or me. I mean, Marquez was a good guy compared to the rest, don’t get me wrong. Family man, and all.” He paused, looking me square in the eye. “But that don’t mean he wouldn’t have done the same to me. People down here, man, they ain’t playing from the same playbook as people north of the river. Or anyfuckingwhere else, you know? This shit’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” Kris said, nodding, “we heard your guards talking about it.”

“So I either had to do it myself,” Simmons said, “or they’d question my loyalty. Might have even been me hanging from that porch. Course, with me you’d only have found a corpse. No healing factor.”

“Human?” I asked.

“American,” he said, grinning. “But, yeah, human too. Served with Harrington before he left for the PRB. Knew he was into some spooky shit, so when I got the gig down here, I got in touch with him anonymously. Never knew how fucking spooky it could get.”

“How long have you been feeding him intel?” Kris asked.

“A little over a year and a half.” Simmons fixed us both with a look. “Listen, this is all fine and dandy us having this chat like this, but you think we can have it back at the safe house instead?” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “Fifteen minutes outside of town, and you  can ask all the damn questions you want. ’Cause, I get busted with y’all here, all three of us are going to be out on that porch come sundown tomorrow. Or worse.”

“Anything worse than that?” I asked.

Simmons shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Cid can get pretty damned imaginative. Hate to put that to a test.”

“One last thing, and then we’ll go,” Kris said.

“Yeah?” he drawled.

“Why were you there? That place was deserted. It was just you and Marquez.”

Simmons didn’t say anything for a long time. “Honestly?”

We both nodded.

“Trying to grow a pair big enough to go shoot him.”

“I suppose you were hoping the tequila would help?” I asked.

“Something like that, yeah.” His shoulders somehow slumped further. “It didn’t, of course. I knew someone was going to be along, and I’d need to be here to help you stop this crazy bastard.”

We all sat there in silence for a moment longer as another gust of wind kicked up. Gravel and rocks and dust beat against the windows of the pickup and the sides of the buildings, a ghostly sound in the near silence of the haunted-feeling town.

“Y’all satisfied now?” Simmons asked.

Kris and I exchanged another look before we slowly nodded. “I am,” I said.

“Yeah. Me too. Let’s go.”