when he ought to be. “I think I did something really bad.”
He showed me the writhing brand on his left arm, the sigil that marked his soul as someone else’s property. He introduced me to a world of demons and nightmares I hadn’t even known existed. And he asked me if I knew any way out.
Now, realize that my wife is a witch, as in Wiccan. But her magical abilities are something separate and apart from her religion, and at that time, I had no idea this stuff existed. I accused Cole of getting drunk and tattooed. I laughed in his face. It took some time to convince me he was really in trouble. After that, though, it was on.
I mean, what was I supposed to do? He was my little brother, and he was in deep. He explained to me about the contract, what the tattoo meant. And it stood to reason that a demon that would make one deal would make another. In the movies, people made challenges with the devil all the time, right? Golden fiddles and shit. I didn’t know all the rules, but I knew how to fight. It’s one of the few things I’ve ever been good at. And I knew that turning a blind eye was worse than anything else.
I fought for his soul. I fully admit that I won only through sheer luck. It should have made us closer, surviving something like that. Instead, we drifted apart.
Maybe he knew I always harbored a faint disappointment in him. Maybe he couldn’t handle my knowing his dirty secret. Maybe he just hated himself for not making a better deal when he had the chance. He’d bargained for Nicky to live, that one time, not for his continued good health. The demon got the better of Cole. Maybe it ate at him. I don’t know. Like I said, we don’t talk much anymore.
I brooded on that way longer than I should have-most of the drive home, in fact. We’ll pretend that’s why I didn’t notice the blue Ford Escort in more than a passing way until I was nearly home.
In all fairness to me, though, I had no reason to notice it. I mean, it’s an Escort, right? The most innocuous car known to man. It wasn’t driving erratically; it wasn’t even that close to my truck. It was there, three cars back, the driver no doubt minding his own business and thinking things such as “Man, my hemorrhoids hurt.” If not for the incident the previous night and the sudden feeling of ants crawling all over my arms (never a good sign), I never would have noticed it at all.
But once I’d made four different turns, and it was still back there, I started paying more attention. What were the odds that a blue Escort tried to run me off the road the night before, and now one had just showed up behind me again?
On a hunch, I took a random right turn, just to see what would happen. Not thirty seconds later, the plucky little car followed right behind me. “Okay, buddy… Let’s see how serious you are about this.” I sped up, soon doing forty through the residential neighborhood.
The Escort kept up, never farther than three blocks behind me. To my frustration, I couldn’t make out any features of the driver. The sunlight bounced off the windshield, the glare blinding me. I took another right down a shade-dappled side street, hoping to get a better look, and screeched to a halt in the middle of the street.
The car pulled up at the end of the block and sat there for several long moments. I watched it in my rearview mirror, almost feeling the gaze of the silhouetted driver staring back. I was almost certain it was a guy. The hair was either close-cropped or slicked down, shoulders decently broad. I could hear the whine of a belt under the hood, and I filed that away as an identifying mark.
I don’t know how long we stared at each other like that. It seemed like forever. Then the Escort floored it and squalled tires in the other direction.
“Oh, you think so?” I did an ugly U-turn myself, running up over someone’s nicely manicured lawn, and was off in hot pursuit. The bastard wasn’t man enough to face me directly, was he? It should be noted that this ranked pretty high on my “stupid me” tricks list.
I caught a glimpse of the car as it left the subdivision and headed east. Toward the highway. If I didn’t catch up to him before he hit I-35, I’d lose him in the traffic. I shifted through gears as fast as I could, rounding corners at highly unsafe speeds. Where the tiny residential street met a four- lane thoroughfare, I lost sight of the blue car for just a moment.
Cussing under my breath, I glanced up and down, trying to guess which way he’d gone. The highway was to the left, but he could lose himself in more housing additions if he went right.
The sound of a squealing belt carried to me through the open window, and I smirked. Gotcha. Stomping on the gas, I turned left. I lost the belt whine in the roar of my own engine, but I knew he had to be just ahead of me. I topped a small rise, fully expecting to see the blue car just ahead of me, and fumed when it wasn’t. Where the hell. ..?
There was nothing there but a pale yellow VW bug, its engine wailing plaintively as it trundled over the next hill. “Dammit!” I glanced behind me, on the off chance that a blue Ford Escort would materialize on command, but there was nothing.
My gaze returned to the front just in time to keep me from annihilating a small ratlike dog as it ran into the street yapping at my wheels. I slammed on the brakes, and rested my head against the steering wheel until my heart stopped marching double-time in my chest.
Well, that rather eliminated any chance of last night being a random act of drunken stupidity. In a way, I was relieved. I mean, for whatever reason, someone was rather annoyed with me. But at least that meant there wasn’t some maniac on the road, running hapless people into ditches. Mira was safe; the girls at work were safe. The question was, should I report it or not? I mean, if this was work related-champion work, not retail work-what would I say?
I concocted and discarded at least twenty different stories on the way home, and none of them were even remotely plausible. By default, I guess I would just keep it to myself-no use upsetting Mira.
My power steering whined as I pulled into my garage, mocking me and almost muffling the ring of my cell phone. “Hello?”
“Dawson.” Ivan sounded as if he’d been gargling gravel. “It is being morning there, tak? I am not to be waking you?”
“No, no, I’m up. What’s going on?”
I could almost hear him shaking his grizzled white head. “It is being muchly difficult here. And I am thinking that the news will not be good.”
8
I rummaged through the kitchen to fix myself some kind of sustenance as Ivan talked. Surely any and all paranoia I was experiencing was a result of hunger. That was the ticket.
The leftovers were piled neatly in the fridge, dated and color coded. My wife is sometimes a bit anal, but I love her anyway.
“Miguel was to be entertaining a client three weeks ago. He was to be meeting them when he traveled north to visit family. A town called Mascarena. He was to be telling Rosaline this, but he was not speaking the name.” Ivan’s voice grumbled in my ear, sounding rather like a great disgruntled bear.
I didn’t find Miguel’s actions unusual. I don’t tell Mira whom I work for, either, most of the time. I operate under the assumption that she’s safer not knowing. “He didn’t tell his brothers or anything? Not even where he was going?”
Ivan has a powerful frown. I could hear it over the phone, could picture the deeply creased forehead beneath his stark white crew cut. “There is to being some language difficulty here, but, I believe the brothers are not to be knowing. The family in the north; they are being afraid to speak, even to Miguel’s family. It is possible they are not to be understanding that I mean no harm. I am told I am to being intimidating.”
He was probably right. No one would ever mistake Ivan for anything other than military or law enforcement, and neither was popular in Mexico, especially near the border. Add to that his horrible English and their native Spanish, and it gave a whole new meaning to “language barrier.” “Look, I have a client in town myself, but once I’ve settled him, Mira and I can fly down. She can translate for you.” Mira was amazing with languages, and Spanish was just one of several she spoke fluently.
“That is not being necessary. We are to be making do with what we have. The family is to being most hospitable to me.”
