Bewere the Night

said; they were suddenly more common than before. But agents of the Border Patrol died more often in the line of duty than any other federal law enforcement division, and the people in charge were more concerned with human killers than animal attacks.

Only Ines suspected more. She could hardly tell anyone it was nagualismo, though, even if she admitted to being a nagual herself. And so she had gone south, into Mexico, returning as an illegal immigrant, to hunt the coyote who ran on both two legs and four.

They snapped and feinted at one another, El Rojo using his greater speed and agility. But that was a dangerous game for him to play, especially on his own; when coyotes hunted larger prey, they did so in packs, and his was dead. That was why he had ambushed her—and as if he remembered that at the same moment, El Rojo turned and ran.

Ines followed. It might be enough to have killed the others, or it might not. If he could share his nagualismo with anyone, it wouldn’t take him long to be back in business. But it wasn’t pragmatism that drove her; it was the memory of Javier’s funeral, and his sister’s grief. And her own devastated face, staring back at her from the mirror.

The beast wanted his blood.

And the beast was stupid, forgetting she wasn’t the only predator out here tonight. The shotgun blast clipped her right hip, a few of the pellets raking bloody tracks into her fur. El Rojo had lured her back toward the motorcycles, and the agent with the gun. That man didn’t know she was a friend. Ines roared, and leaped out of range.

Bleeding, trembling with exhaustion even the teopatli couldn’t erase, she prayed, as she’d once prayed to the spirit of the day on which she was born. Alone in the desert, hallucinating and exhausted, bleeding from the tongue in the old manner, she’d begged the spirit to come—and the jaguar had answered.

El Rojo was creeping up behind her, not quite silent enough. Ines waited, paws braced against the rocky dirt. Closer. And closer.

When he leapt, she twisted to meet him, with all the speed and power of the jaguar.

One massive paw slammed him to the side. El Rojo yelped, but it cut off as her jaws found his neck. With a single bite, she severed his spinal cord, and his went limp in the dust.

Panting, she stood over the of her prey. Not far away, she heard the second engine start up again, and the crunching rush of the motorcycles driving away. The wounded agent was well enough to ride, then, and they’d given up the chase.

For now.

Ines licked her spotted fur clean as best she could. Then, wearily, strength fading again, she padded back along her own trail to her clothes and the tin of teopatli. Changing back to human form brought all her previous exhaustion and then some crashing down; she could barely persuade herself to get dressed. The only thing that moved her was the knowledge that sixteen frightened migrants waited in the darkness, knowing only what they heard: motorcycles and guns, coyotes and the roar of a jaguar. She hoped they hadn’t run.

They hadn’t. It would have been suicide, in desert territory none of them knew at all. Miguel stood up as Ines approached, and a few others followed suit, including the mother Ines had failed to protect from El Rojo.

The silence stretched out. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, to what she would tell the migrants. Lack of energy made her blunt. “They’re dead. The coyotes.”

One of the other women whimpered. Ines stood, only half-listening, as a babble of questions and fear broke out. She didn’t come out of her daze until Miguel drew close and said, “Do you know where we were going?”

The Tohono O’odham reservation, probably, where El Rojo would have had some means for them to continue onward. Ines didn’t know what that would have been. But she knew some of the Indians protected migrants, and sent them along to others who could help.

Miguel saw it in her eyes. “You’ll have to lead us, then.”

Ines opened her mouth to answer him, then stopped. She had climbed the fence with these people; she had paid a coyote and gone into the desert, just like the rest of them, and that made them kin. Here in the middle of the wilderness, she could not say to Miguel, I’m an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol. I don’t do coyotaje. I arrest those who do.

She would take them to the reservation, of course; it was that, or abandon them here to die. But when they arrived, she would have to hand them over, to be deported back to Mexico.

Her gaze fell on the young mother, with her infant daughter. Eduardo had been the same age when their mother carried him across the border. He was eleven when they deported him, with no memory of the “home” they were sending him back to; Mama, caught in the same raid, had gone with him. Ines, born in the United States, had stayed, and lost her family for years.

She’d joined the patrol to fight drug smuggling, to end violence, not to hunt people who only wanted work and a better life. Sneaking across the desert, risking death every step of the way, was no kind of answer—but they had no other. And Ines could not tell these frightened, hopeful men and women and children that the dream was not for them.

“We’ll rest for an hour,” she said. “Then I’ll take you someplace safe.”

SWEAR NOT BY THE MOON by Renee Carter Hall

The wolf watches us from the far corner of the enclosure as the girl fumbles with her keys to let me inside. I don’t bother to call to him; his hearing isn’t as good as it used to be, and besides, he won’t come near until we’re alone.

In the brochure, they called the enclosure an “enriched personal habitat,” but it’s really more of a pen, a section of grass and trees fenced with chain link. They’ve tried to make the grounds look something like a forest, but the effect is too neatly trimmed to be convincing. Instead, it looks more like a park—or a zoo.

The only thing that’s wild here is him.

In the nearest corner, a three-sided wooden shelter shades two stainless steel bowls. One holds fresh water, changed every hour—a touch I appreciate—and the other is half-filled with a pile of pink beef scraps.

I watch two flies buzz around the meat. It doesn’t look like he’s touched it at all.

I sigh and turn back to the girl, who has already closed the gate behind me. “Has he eaten anything today?”

She glances at his chart. “No, sir, not today. They tried giving him venison this morning like you asked, but he didn’t eat any of it.”

“Was it cold?”

Even with the chain link separating us, she blanches under my gaze, and I look away briefly to make her more comfortable. I know, then, that she has no faol blood in her. “I don’t know,” she says.

I try to keep my voice gentle. “He won’t eat it unless it’s warm.”

She jerks a nod. “I’ll make a note, sir.”

I don’t doubt that she will. They love notes at this place: charts and paperwork and orders typed in all caps. But I wonder if they ever bother to read any of them. One shift ends, another one starts, and you might as well have never said anything in the first place.

If it’s frustrating for me, I can only imagine what it’s like for him. At least I can still speak.

“Thank you,” I tell her, though I’m not really sure what I’m thanking her for. “I’ll find you if we need anything else.”

She locks the gate and hurries away. I wonder how long she’ll keep working here.

I double-check that the gate is closed securely, then sit down on the wooden bench under one of the trees. The wolf whines softly as he rises and comes to me. He is thinner than the last time I saw him, and his gait is stiff-