then?
He started stalking back and forth, and finally answered my silent question. “They want me to make a tithe. To openly join their cause—to take their side.”
“What side is that?” I couldn’t see Dr. Tovar under some gang leader’s thumb. “They don’t want you to help anyone but their people? Or work for free?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” He stopped and got a pensive look. “They didn’t go in back this time. Or burn us down. This was just a warning.”
“And the seveneenth?” I tried again.
“It’s meant for me.” He walked over to the wall painted with the numbers and planted his hand against them. He rubbed against it and the top layer of wet paint smeared. He sighed and rubbed his hand against his pants.
“But why you?” I had my suspicions. Perhaps they wanted him to stop giving blood to vampires. “The crosses, and the blood,” I slowly began. I’d seen Jorgen last night—I knew there were vampires around. I was sure of it.
He cut me off with a shuddering sigh. “Stop it.”
He looked so exhausted and angry—exhausted by being angry—that I had to. It was my turn to take pity on him. I walked around the room. The two flanking crosses were ornate multicolored affairs, part Celtic, part Greek Orthodox, elaborately colored and twisting. The center cross was stick-straight and stark gray. I wondered if they hadn’t gotten a chance to finish it, but its lines were crisp and the edges were shaded. Maybe its simpleness offsetting the others was the point?
I opened my mouth and inhaled to ask him a question, but he cut me off with a gesture. “Please. Go.” He waved me out of the waiting room, and went in back.
I sat down on the front stairs, not sure where else to go. If I went out very far I’d only get lost, and I didn’t have any paint to begin covering the crosses up.
I felt bad for him, even if he was a doctor. This clinic was his baby, and Three Crosses had gone and ruined it—not just for him, but for everyone. That’s why they’d hurt him here and not at his home, wherever it may be. Violence done to him personally, he’d just shrug off or take silently—he was that kind of man.
But violence done here, to his place and his people? It was the lowest kind of blow.
I’d never once seen him do the wrong thing, not where his people or patients were concerned. And it dawned on me that I was among their number, another wayward chick tucked under his wing. He’d hired me to protect me. And he’d been walking back and forth to the station with me. Normally that sort of thing would chafe, but I was having a hard time minding. It was nice to feel like someone else gave a damn. It made me feel safe.
What if this was the page of the Choose Your Own Adventure novelization of my life where I just picked to forget everything that came before and take everything at face value, as it was told to me? And not pry and just let sleeping dogs lie and not feel bad for realizing my boss sort of seemed interested in me, and also was hot? Apart from the part where my mom died, it sounded nice.
Eduardo returned holding a waiting room chair. “Chair delivery,” he announced, and I scooted over to let him in, saving me from any more strange thoughts.
One by one, chairs filtered in throughout the rest of the morning. They’d been left in odd spots: on roofs of buildings, in deserted lots. My co-workers had put the word out, asking anyone who found a chair to bring it in.
The insurance adjustor came surprisingly quickly to take pictures of the place. After that, I spent the rest of the day laying drop cloths on the floor—reams of the paper we used to keep exam room tables clean—and putting coat after coat of white paint on the walls.
We were deep into the afternoon when a man appeared in our door. While he didn’t have tattoos on his neck, the men who came in to flank him did.
He had close-cropped black hair, and held himself like he was used to being listened to. He had on a black button-down shirt, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. A gold chain hung outside his shirt, with a large pendant whose shape I couldn’t make out. Catrina ran back to get Dr. Tovar as soon as she saw him, and afterward she stayed in the back. The others stayed but stilled. People put their paintbrushes down.
“I came as soon as I heard there’d been damage here,” he said, once the doctor entered the room.
“I appreciate your concern, Father Maldonado,” Dr. Tovar said flatly.
“Pastor Maldonado,” the man corrected, looking around the room. “Clearly the crosses are meant to implicate us, when we were not responsible.” He held his hand to his chest, as if gravely injured by the vandal’s artistic implications. Once there, his hand stroked the pendant as if it gave him permission or powers. If I squinted and used my imagination, I could see the figurine holding a scythe.
“Clearly,” Dr. Tovar repeated, with sarcasm.
The man looked around at the destruction of the room, his eyes lingering on the sad wall half covered in white. “I could offer to have my men paint a mural here, you know. Testifying to Santa Muerte’s greatness.” He lifted up his pendant to kiss it before carefully setting it back down.
Dr. Tovar grunted. “If she’s so great, why didn’t she stop them from doing this last night?”
“Perhaps she was not aware she had your patronage,” the man said in a conciliatory tone. But that was the only thing regretful about him. His eyes looked around the room, as proud as if the art here were created by his own child. “You have yet to tithe to us. The seventeenth approaches. We can’t finish our new church without the support of every member of the community. How will she know we love her, if our new church isn’t grand?”
“You and I both know this has nothing to do with that.”
At that moment, Eduardo returned with another liberated chair. The pendant-wearing man, whom I guessed was the leader of the Three Crosses, but also some sort of Santa Muerte priest, smiled at seeing him awkwardly lugging it in.
“In the words of Jesus himself—if you’re not with us, you’re against us.” He smiled, revealing teeth as gold as the necklace he wore.
I sighed aloud, and started vigorously painting. I wanted to flick white paint all over his black clothes, but if this is how they retaliated—well, my walk back and forth to the station was a long one. But I’d fought with vampires before and won. I had the scars to prove it. Evil wins when good steps down—and I was tired of stepping down.
I dropped my paintbrush, loudly. “Are you proud of yourself? What you did here?”
“Me?” he said, turning to look as if seeing me for the first time. “I did nothing.”
“How many people who need medical attention won’t get it today, because of you? Kids who need vaccines, and their moms who took time off work to bring them in—are you going to pay them those days back?” I inhaled and exhaled deeply, seething with anger. “People here have it hard enough without incidents like this.”
The man smirked, focusing his attention over my shoulder at Dr. Tovar. “And yet, they could have it harder.”
At some unseen signal, the men behind him retreated, and he followed them out.
From behind me, Dr. Tovar said, “That was stupid of you.”
I was still breathing heavy. “I know.” I turned around to face him. “Sometimes I can’t help myself.”
He looked bemused. “I think you need someone with you at all times, to stop you.” He exhaled and shook his head, but he was actually smiling now, warm and true. That and the T-shirt and the paint splatters on his slacks made him finally look his age. Too young to face a lifetime of this.
“I don’t know why you put up with that. I mean, I know why—but it sucks.” His amusement faded into a sad half smile, and I thought maybe I’d hurt him. If I had, it made me feel bad. This wasn’t his fault. I inhaled and tried to extricate myself. “I’m sorry, Dr. Tovar. I’ll just be over here, finishing my wall.”
He shook his head at me. “You can call me Hector. When we’re not in front of patients, that is.”
I picked my paintbrush up from where it’d landed on the floor, and kept my smile to myself. “Thanks.”
We both worked as the other medical assistants brought back chairs—people from the community brought them in too, once they’d heard what’d happened. By the end of the day, we were only down five.
