The Wrong Goodbye

with people: students, lounging on the steps of the old cathedral; lovers, chatting amiably as they strolled arm-in- arm; children, startling pigeons into flight as they splashed through the puddles that had gathered in the shadow of the capitol building. The scene looked like something out of a picture postcard, right down to the plaza patrons’ unselfconscious good cheer. At the moment, I hated each and every one of them, traipsing about without a care in the world while Danny jerked me around like a puppet on a string.

Five days had passed since I’d received Danny’s grisly message —five days since I’d left Varela’s mutilated corpse, and the corpses of his men, to be reclaimed by the jungle they’d so wrongly sought refuge in. The first two of them I’d spent hiking to the nearest village, although maybe village was too strong a word. Really, it was nothing more than a handful of ramshackle huts clustered around a narrow dirt track that served as their only road. God knows what they must’ve thought of me, stumbling filthy and delirious out of the jungle and begging for food and water in broken Spanish. But whatever they thought of me, they took me in, giving me not only food and water, but fresh clothes and a bed to sleep in as well. The bus to Bogota arrived two days later, looking —as all buses in Colombia seem to —like some crazy Technicolor school bus, its roof piled high with suitcases, wicker baskets, and sacks of grain. I boarded it with a full belly, a clear head, and an undeniable reluctance to leave after the staggering hospitality I’d been shown by these people who had so little to give. Of course, the choice to leave wasn’t mine to make —Danny had made sure of that. I didn’t know what he was playing at, snatching Varela’s soul, and truth be told, I didn’t care. All I cared about was taking back what was rightfully mine, even if I had to tear him limb from limb to do it.

I set fire to a cigarette, and then struck out across the square. Though the sun was bright overhead, the mountain air was cool and thin. After a week spent traipsing through the Amazonian lowlands, my lungs seared from the sudden altitude, and gooseflesh sprung up on my arms at the slightest breeze. I was dizzy and weak, and my muscles protested at the exertion required to remain upright and on the move. If this meeting of ours were to come to blows, I didn’t like my chances. And with Danny, I really couldn’t rule it out.

About a half a block from the square was a small sidewalk cafe —a smattering of wrought-iron tables beneath a black canvas awning, within sight of the twin spires of the cathedral. I took a seat and ordered a cup of strong black coffee, as much for warmth as to kill the time. The minutes passed by as lackadaisically as the tourists, as though both had nowhere in particular to be. When I reached the bottom of my mug, I signaled to the waitress for another.

By the time I finished my second cup of coffee, I was jumpy, and my palms were sweating. My waitress wasn’t faring much better. When she brought my second refill, she shot off something in rapid-fire Spanish that I couldn’t understand, but I think I got the gist: order something besides coffee or beat sidewalk. I tried to explain to her that I was waiting for someone, but that didn’t seem to get much traction. Eventually, I acquiesced, looking over the menu and picking an item at random. That seemed to mollify her, because she snatched the menu from my hands and disappeared into the cafe, leaving me and my coffee jitters in peace.

“Hello, Sam. It’s been a while.”

Even though I’d been expecting him, I swear I never saw him coming. See, every Collector’s got their type. Some pick meat-suits based on strength, or speed, or stamina. Me, I prefer the quiet of the newly dead. But Danny, he’s got a whole ’nother set of criteria. Danny likes ’em pretty. Good teeth, a healthy tan, and ideally with a walk-in full of swanky clothes. He told me once in a moment of drunken confession that he clings to the creature comforts he enjoyed in life as a way of protecting against the erosion of self that comes from subjugating vessel after unwilling vessel, but I didn’t believe him for a second. He does it because he likes the way the ladies look at him.

But that was then, I guess. Today, he looked like shit. Sunken eyes ringed dark from lack of sleep. Sallow skin beaded with sweat and streaked with dirt. There was dirt in his hair, as well, and his clothes were so covered in it, it took me a moment to recognize them as the same fatigues worn by Varela’s men. So this is where the eighth man went, I thought —the one whose rifle I found abandoned alongside his dead compatriots. But that was nearly a week ago, and I’d never known Danny to stick with a meat-suit longer than a day or two. Something clearly wasn’t right here.

“You ask me, Danny, it hasn’t been long enough. Now where the hell is Varela’s soul?”

He blinked at me for a moment as though he hadn’t understood the question, and then dropped awkwardly into the chair opposite me. His eyes darted to and fro, never settling on anything for more than a second. His hands found the unused place setting laid out before him and began fiddling absently with it. His feet tapped out a twitchy, nervous rhythm from beneath the table.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said, his once lilting Queen’s English now brittle, strained.

“Then you’re an idiot. I had to come —your little stunt in the jungle made sure of that.”

He recoiled as if I’d slapped him. His features twisted into an expression of hurt. “I’m sorry about that — really, I am —but I didn’t know what else to do! I’ve got no one else to turn to.”

“Sure you don’t, Danny,” I replied, my words dripping venom. “How is Ana, by the way?”

“Piss off, Sam, that was years ago. I mean, I’m sorry how that shook out, but I was hoping we were past that.”

“Past it? Is that what you hoped? You lied to her, Danny. You betrayed me. You know damn well I had nothing to do with Quinn getting shelved —but hey, if pinning it on me means you and Ana get to ride off into the sunset together, then by all means. After all, what’s a little backstabbing between friends?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sam, we’ve been through this all a thousand times. I swear to you, whatever she heard, she did not hear it from me. How many times am I going to have to tell you that before you’ll actually believe it?”

“At least once more.”

“I think I’ll save my breath,” he said. “Besides, what I did or didn’t tell her is immaterial. Ana’s a big girl, and her conclusions are her own. You know as well as anyone that once she’s made up her mind, there’s not a force on God’s Earth that’s going to change it. Now, I won’t deny that when she turned her back on you, it was me she turned to, but I can promise you there was no riding off into the sunset for the two of us. When Quinn got shelved, it shook her up pretty bad. And then you left–”

“Left?” I let out a single, barking laugh, shrill and humorless. “The way I remember it, you two abandoned me.”

“Yeah, well, whatever you want to call it, it was the beginning of the end for Ana and me. We held on for a while —out of obligation, I suppose —but we were just forestalling the inevitable. Truth is, I haven’t seen Ana in months.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him. Then again, it didn’t matter. After all, I hadn’t come here to pick at old wounds. I had come here to take back what was rightfully mine.

I came here for Varela’s soul.

“All right, Danny. Why don’t you tell me what we’re doing here?”

But Danny wasn’t paying me any mind. Instead, he seemed suddenly transfixed by a spot over my left shoulder. His face contorted in panic, and the idle tapping of his feet ceased. I twisted in my seat to see what it was he was looking at, but it was nothing but a common crow, preening itself on a porch rail a couple doors down. Or rather, it would have been a common crow on damn near any other continent. As far as I knew, no one had ever seen a crow this far south, which made this one anything but common. But aside from Danny, who looked like he was going to crawl out of his skin —and me, I suppose —no one seemed to pay it any mind. Guess there weren’t a lot of bird-watchers out that day.

Eventually, Danny realized I’d asked a question and got around to replying, though his eyes never left the crow perched behind me. “I’m in trouble, Sam.” As he spoke, three more crows fluttered to a landing on the street beside us, picking at whatever scraps of food had settled in the cracks between the ancient cobblestones. He glanced at them, and the fear-lines in his face deepened. “I need your help.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s… it’s about a job. A couple weeks ago, this was. The bloke was a mob enforcer out of Vegas by the name of Giordano. Nothing special about him, really —just your typical street thug. Or, at least, he was, until he cut a deal with a demon a couple years back and wound up a made guy. Honestly, you’d think if you were going to go to all the trouble of selling your immortal bloody soul, you might aim a