Agave Kiss

Finding Kel

A quick call to Ramon netted me an address for his ex-girlfriend, Caridad. Since I would be arriving today with cash in hand, I didn’t imagine she’d mind seeing me during business hours. Booke, Butch, and I drove downtown, which was a little run-down, populated with Popeyes and cheap clothing stores, along with a shop that sold various designer knockoffs. I got lucky with a parking space, and we only had to walk a block down to the small storefront where Caridad had her shop.

Orange neon rimmed the window and a small palm glowed red at the center. The frosted letters read FORTUNES BY CARIDAD; and the sign with the hours on it had been flipped to OPEN, so I pushed through the door, jangling a bell tied to the top. Booke came up behind me to stand at my shoulder while I took stock of the room; it was decorated like an old-fashioned parlor with velvet and damask furniture in hues of wine and saffron. In the middle sat a table with a black fringed cloth. Handwoven tapestries covered the walls, presumably to make potential patrons forget they were five minutes away from chicken being sold by the bucket.

“The only thing missing is the crystal ball,” Booke said.

I nodded as Caridad came out of the back.

“I suspect you don’t want your palm read,” she said, after she placed me. Booke, she seemed not to recognize at all, which was probably for the best. “So I won’t give you my usual patter about palmistry. What do you need?”

“My friend’s gone missing, and I have reason to believe he may be in trouble. I wondered if there was a way you could scry for him.”

Once, I could’ve cast this spell myself. Now, I’d only be able to do it via demon magick, and I was resolved not to use it, unless it was a matter of life and death. I didn’t know how bad things were for Kel at the moment, so I needed to find out. If it required deploying Dumah to save him, I would . . . but not without further intel. I hoped Caridad wouldn’t check me out with witch sight, then she did.

Her gaze narrowed. “Why should I help you?”

“Because I’m paying cash.”

“Do you have any of his personal effects?” That was the magic word apparently. Caridad cared more about the state of my wallet than for my morality.

I cast a look at Booke and then answered softly, “No. But he and I were lovers once. He said that means we still have a . . . connection.”

“Does your friend have any unusual qualities?”

“Yes, definitely.” If I understood the question correctly, she was asking if he was gifted, or could use magick. Since I wasn’t about to tell her he was Nephilim—or half demon, whatever—that was the most I could reveal.

“Then it’s possible I can scry for him using your blood. Unless this connection he mentioned is strong, however, the results will probably be weak and limited, provided it works at all. The cost for the spell is five hundred dollars, payable up front and regardless of results.”

Without haggling I counted out the bills. “I assume you don’t do your real workings in the front?”

She shook her head. “Let me flip the sign and lock the door. Go on back.”

We passed through a black velvet curtain into a more utilitarian space. Caridad had a stove for cooking potions and salves, a plain wood table, and four rows of shelves filled with various components neatly labeled in glass canisters. Booke took a seat as Caridad joined us. Muttering, the witch set the ingredients she needed on the counter, then she turned to me with a sharp silver athame.

“I need seven drops of your blood in the chalice, please.” Now that she had my money, she was polite and professional, no hint of the arrogance that had colored our interaction at Chuch’s place.

After pricking my finger, I squeezed out the requested amount; then she gave me a gauze pad. “This will take a few moments.”

I nodded. “Anything else?”

“No. Just permit me to focus.”

The hair rose on my arms as she summoned her power. Caridad mixed the herbs along with oil, water, and my blood, which gave it an oddly prismatic effect. As she whispered to the mixture, images resolved in the shimmering liquid, but they were vague and weak; I could only make out what looked like the thrashing of limbs—

But she was frowning. “It looks as if he’s confined. Chained. I can’t make out more, unfortunately. If you had something that belonged to him, I might be able to pinpoint his precise location. But this is the best I can do. I’m sorry.”

I pushed out a slow breath. “It’s fine. I’ll track him down another way. It’s enough to receive confirmation that he needs my help.”

“Was that all?” she asked.

“Yes, thanks for your time.”

Caridad escorted us to the door, unlocked it, and turned the sign back to OPEN. “Please consider me if you need more assistance. Have a good day.”

I supposed there were worse things a witch could be, other than mercenary. Before we set out for La Rosa Negra, I gave Butch a drink and let him stretch his legs on the sidewalk. He promptly found a strip of grass and anointed it. Then he trotted back to me with a cocky Chihuahua strut.

“Done?” I asked.

Affirmative yap.

The trip wasn’t bad if you stuck to the highways.

Driving in Texas was always a bit of a crap shoot, as sometimes there were great ruts in the roads, but not this time. Highway repair crews had been out recently, so the Pinto putted along, reliable if not desirable. Sadly, the route didn’t offer much in the way of scenery—dry scrubland interspersed with rest areas and the occasional overpass oasis. Summer had fried the grass to a fire-hazard brown, and I imagined I could hear it crackling like tinfoil in the breeze as we blew past.

Booke was quiet as we drove, then he seemed to make a decision to exist in the present with me. I could only imagine what memories had been haunting him. He’d lost the woman he loved, a son he hardly knew, and his whole life. This had to feel like a dream to him sometimes, where he feared wakening with all his muscles clenched and in a cold sweat only to find he’d never left the ghost cottage after all.

“Tell me about this cantina.” In his quiet voice I heard the unspoken plea.

Help me forget.

Because I wished somebody would do that for me, I regaled him with stories about La Rosa Negra, though I don’t think he believed me about the cherry classic cars surrounding the dive. I told him about my first visit there, Esteban, whose sister’s body I helped to find, and the killer we brought to light years later through the tattoos on his knuckles. Without meaning to, I told him about dancing with Chance—the first time he ever broke his long-held reserve with me. In that moment, my hands clenched on the wheel. I could feel him moving behind me, his arms around me, his scent wrapping me up. With every fiber in my being, I ached.

When I paused, Booke said gently, “You love him so.”

There were no words, so I just nodded. The conversation stalled after that. Just as well. I needed full attention to navigate the busier streets of San Antonio. Laredo wasn’t a Podunk town, but there was more traffic here, more people too. After a series of wrong turns, I located the right street. In daytime, the area was on the seedy side. Darkness cloaked the peeling paint on the surrounding houses, the sun-faded pavement and cracked sidewalks with scraggly grass forcing its way up through the cement. A few kids were sitting on cars half a block up, likely lookouts for whoever ran the business in the neighborhood. I ignored them, knowing they wouldn’t pay any attention to the Pinto. A major player wouldn’t be caught dead in this ride.

La Rosa Negra was a lime green one-story building in crumbling stucco. It needed a coat of paint; hell, it could’ve used one the first time I visited. Inside, the bar was quiet, no waitress, just the guy behind the bar. He had long dark hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, and he chin-checked me in greeting, as I came out of the sun into the shady interior. Behind the counter, the picture of the maiden with the black rose clenched in her teeth still hung in its place of honor. The ceilings were low, beams and plaster giving the place a rustic air reinforced by the mismatched furniture and the scarred dance floor, empty at the moment. Ranchera music played quietly on an old radio, not a song I recognized, though. I scanned the room for potential troublemakers, but there were only a couple of drinkers . . . and one matched the description Chuch had given me, including the straw cowboy hat.

“That’s our guy,” I told Booke, who followed me to the old-timer’s table.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked in English, then repeated in Spanish to be polite.

Beto offered a smile in reply, showing a couple of missing teeth. His sclera were faintly yellowed, his nose red, but he seemed happy to have company. With a broad, sweeping gesture, he indicated the seats opposite. “Not at all.”

Booke and I settled. Then I said, “I heard you used to do some border work.”

“I’m no coyote.” He narrowed his eyes. “And even if I did help some people out back in the day, I’m retired now.”

“That’s not why we’re asking,” Booke put in. His accent surprised the old man, defusing some of his righteous indignation.

Beto cut an uncertain look at me. “What then?”

“I need to find someone, but I only have a vague idea where to start. A friend said you might be able to identify a sketch of a rock formation.”

“Maybe. Buy me a drink, tell me a story, and I’ll have a look.” He waved the ’tender over without awaiting my response. “The good tequila, make it a double. She’s paying my shot.”

I nodded; as I put my money on the table, Booke said, “I’ll have a bourbon, neat. Please.”

At the barman’s inquiring look, I added, “Nothing for me. I’m driving.”

And trying to find a chained Nephilim. But I didn’t figure the ’tender cared, though he might’ve heard weirder stories in his day. He served us quickly, then returned to his semi-doze behind the bar. To Beto I gave a condensed version of the situation: my friend was missing, but he’d managed to describe what he’d seen before we were cut off. That version of events had the benefit of not making me sound like a total headcase, even to a drunk.

Beto knocked his booze back without waiting for salt or lime. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and then said, “Show me what you have.”

I pushed the sketch across to him. “It’s not much, I know.”

He perused it with a faint frown. “I feel like I should know this place, but I can’t place it. The formation is unique.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Booke killed his bourbon with a pleased expression.

The cool thing about rolling with Booke was that for him, everything was an adventure. For the longest time, the modern world had just been a fable, though technology trickled into his prison via demon magick. Still, it must be hard to envision the changes until you saw them with your own eyes. Harder still to accept that you’d never see anything firsthand; instead you’d live out your unnaturally long life alone. Macleish had planned his punishment well.

“Any suggestions?” It had been a long shot that this former coyote would be able to place the locale at a glance. My luck just didn’t run that way.

“Hire a witch to dowse?” Beto offered.

“That won’t work,” I murmured. “We already tried. Well, thanks anyway.”

As I pushed to my feet, the old man snapped his fingers. “Must be your lucky day, señorita. I just remembered where I’ve seen that place. Back in the bad old days, it was used as a temporary holding pen for girls—”

“Who had been kidnapped and enslaved?” I’d stumbled into a human trafficking ring back when I was trying to locate Chance’s mother, kidnapped by a cartel she crossed years ago. Ambivalence stirred in reaction to Beto’s revelation. On one hand, I was glad the op had been shut down for good when we took out their chief warlock . . . but so many girls had died.

But the idea of driving out to a remote hidey-hole associated with cartel business? It didn’t seem like the sanest thing I’d ever done. But what the hell.

“Can you give me directions?”

“I think so. Let me make a call. I was only out that way once, and I wasn’t driving.” He gazed at me expectantly, so I handed him my phone.

The subsequent conversation passed in rapid-fire Spanish; I caught bits and pieces, but some of it was too fast for me to translate. By the time he hung up, Beto looked pasty, and when he flattened his hands on the table, they were trembling.

“They’re not using it anymore, but I just talked to an amigo. Said he knows a guy who went out there recently, but . . . he never came back.”

So there’s something guarding Kel. Makes sense.

“You feel like battling some demons?” I whispered to Booke.

He flashed me a wide smile. “I feel as if I’ve waited my whole life for someone to ask me that.”

“Two lives, even. Brush up on some combat spells on the way, okay? I’m not gonna be much use out there.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

Beto cleared his throat. “If you need some weapons, I know a guy.”

Of course he did. I smothered a smile. “I’m not a very good shot, but if he sells Tasers and knives, I might survive long enough for Booke to do his thing.”

“Si, he’s got anything you could want.”

“Not in a store?” I guessed.

“He sells out of his trunk.”

That sounded familiar. Chuch had gotten me an emergency cell phone from a market that consisted of parked cars. “Let me guess . . .” I described the location.

“That’s the place. Look for a tan Malibu, early eighties.”

“Thanks. Can you write down the directions to the cartel hideout?”

“No problem.” He borrowed a scrap of paper from the bartender, and I handed him a pen.

Booke leaned over. “Is this likely to get dicey?”

“Probably.”

The Englishman smiled. “Finally.”

I was less sanguine about facing monsters and death, but it was good he wasn’t whining, like the dog in my handbag. Butch had been emitting a high-frequency moan ever since he heard about the unknown beast that killed the last dude who went out there. Like me, he was ready to settle down to a normal life.

After taking the directions, I dropped a couple of twenties on the table. “For your time.”

“Don’t die,” the old man advised.

I offered a wry smile. “Will do my best.”

Butch was still whimpering, so I set him on the scraggly grass, where he peed again out of sheer nerves. Booke picked him up to comfort him as we returned to the Pinto. He was smiling as he slid into the car, face upturned to bask in the sunlight. He had the pallor of a long-term invalid, like he’d just woken from a ten-year coma. Maybe it felt that way to him too.

“First, the street market?” Booke asked.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t open until dusk. In daylight, it would draw too much attention.”

“That makes sense. I suppose the area clears out when all the businesses close.”

“Exactly.”

We ended up killing time over lunch, and then I took him shopping. Impossible to believe, but the guy had never been to a mall. By the time we came out, he was loaded down with purchases, mostly tech toys he was dying to try. Since it was expensive, energy-wise, he’d only had the Birsael demon deliver the most essential items required to keep him healthy and sane.

“Ready to rock?” I asked, as we locked his new gear in the trunk. Gods help me if he ever discovered the Sharper Image.

“Indisputably.”

The street market was much as I remembered it, hidden behind an abandoned warehouse. There was an unused parking lot, but the cars parked in the alley behind the building. There were a few merchants already doing business. To my surprise, the cell phone guy remembered me. “Need a hookup?” he yelled, making the universal “call me” sign with his thumb and forefinger.

Smiling, I shook my head, skimming the vehicles for a tan Malibu. Then I sighed. “Not here yet.”

“What if he doesn’t come?” Booke asked.

“Then I guess we wade in unprepared.”

“There’s a difference between ‘yen for adventure’ and ‘death wish,’” he observed.

I shrugged. “I can’t leave Kel hanging. Though I’m not the witch I used to be, and the touch won’t do me much good in a fight, I have to try.”

“That’s what makes you such a good friend.”

He put an arm around me and squeezed my shoulders in a friendly fashion. Though he looked younger, he felt like a favorite uncle. We didn’t wait long for Tan Malibu. Part of me wondered if he knew Chuch, but I didn’t want to drag the Ortizes further into this mess. Bad enough they had a crime scene in their yard. I watched as the dealer settled onto the hood, then I made my way over to his car.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Beto sent me.”

“Yeah, he gave me the heads-up that you’re okay. Otherwise I’d have to ask you to show me your belly.”

In case I was wearing a wire. Just to settle the issue for his peace of mind, I flashed some skin and raised each of my pant legs. “I’ll tell my friend to wait over there with my bag, if you’re really worried.”

At this suggestion, Butch popped his head out of my purse and growled. He didn’t like being banished from the action.

The guy laughed. “Nah, it’s cool. I see you got a guard dog. My auntie raises Chihuahuas . . . yappy little ankle biters.”

Butch’s growl went lower. I tapped him gently on the skull. “Pipe down, you know I love you.”

He shut up.

“Whatcha need?”

“A Taser and a good knife, for sure.”

He seemed a little disappointed. “You could buy that anywhere. I got some serious hardware up in here.”

“I know, but I’m not the best shot.”

“I’ll take a piece,” Booke said in his plummy accent.

The dealer’s face was priceless. “Really?”

I stifled a smile, letting Booke take the lead. “It’s been some years—” Massive understatement. “But I used to be quite a good shot. Let me see your hardware.”

“With pleasure.” The guy popped the trunk, revealing a dazzling array of weapons.

Some had obviously seen hard street use; others looked pristine, as if they’d just come off the factory floor. I didn’t ask questions, as that tended to piss off entrepreneurs like Tan Malibu. Booke leaned over for a better look and then he indicated what I thought was a Glock.

“May I?”

The merchant nodded. “Sure, it’s not loaded.”

Though I wasn’t the best judge of such things, Booke seemed to know what he was doing when he handled the gun. He held it two-handed with his fingers curled around for support, and it looked to me like he wasn’t exaggerating his experience. I’d love to know more about his past, but it wasn’t the time. I could hardly ask in front of GM when the story was so implausible.

“How’s the recoil?” Booke asked, along with a number of technical questions, before nodding. “I’ll take the nine millimeter.”

“I only have one type of Taser in stock,” GM told me. “But I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And if you’re looking for a quick kill after you incapacitate someone, then this is the blade for you.” He demonstrated a few moves and explained where I should be stabbing.

That alarmed me, as he looked so normal, but it wasn’t like killers went around with signs around their necks, or tattoos on their foreheads. That would make life so much simpler. In the end, I bought all three, plus some ammo for Booke’s gun, and a shoulder harness that he slipped on under his jacket.

“Remember,” GM called as we headed out. “If you’re caught, it’s illegal to carry concealed and I never met you.”

I assured him, “We won’t flip.”

“Heard that before,” he muttered.

Butch yapped at him in disapproval, as a Chihuahua’s word was his bond. Funny, but even a gangly Englishman gained some swagger with a gun hidden beneath his coat. I teased him about it as I swung back into the car.

“Now you’ve got a total James Bond thing going on, only you’re cooler because you do magick. You’ll have to beat the ladies off with a stick.”

He colored, cutting his eyes to the stained floor mat in the Pinto. Lord, it was a good thing our outcome didn’t depend on image. The engine purred to life, however, a testament to Chuch’s good work. Someday, I’d love to have him restore a car for me, totally custom from bumper to bumper.

Then Booke changed the subject; clearly he didn’t want to talk about his own charms. “Speaking of magick, if you know of a shop, I need to get a few things. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with how hermetic tradition works—”

“No clue.” I figured I’d save him a few words. “Tell me how I can help.”

He nodded as I pulled onto the street. “I’m not as versatile as a witch. I need more preparation, and to use my spells in combat, I must store them in a focus object, which is destroyed in the process.”

“Gotcha. Yeah, I know a place. Shannon and I found it a while back when I was squaring off against the Montoyas.”

Caridad didn’t sell supplies; there was more profit to be made in offering spells only. But after this last stop, we should be ready to head into the wilderness to find Kel. Hopefully it won’t take forty days and nights.

Then it occurred to me to ask, “How did you learn to shoot? I thought the U.K. had much stricter gun laws than the U.S.”

“Not for soldiers,” Booke said quietly.

Mentally, I did some math. He had been thirty-six in 1947, which meant he could’ve fought in World War II, but he’d said he had been with his lover for eight years, which would’ve taken place during wartime. But maybe they were separated until it ended . . . ? As I pulled into traffic, I decided to find out.

“Did you fight?”

“Yes. Perhaps that’s why the romance seemed so much more desperate, more doomed . . . and therefore, more important. Ironically, by the time she told her husband everything, I was a different man. War changes you.”

It had started as an indulgence of his ego, ended in tragedy. “So those eight years, it was off and on . . . all the stolen moments you could snatch.”

“Precisely. I lived for those hours when she could sneak away . . . or I was on leave. Though toward the end . . .” He lifted a shoulder in a weary, self-deprecating shrug. “I loved her, but she wasn’t the woman I wanted her to be.”

I made a left turn, heading toward the highway. The directions fluttered on the scrap of paper on the dash, lifted by the vent, while Butch paced in the backseat. If he had his Scrabble tiles, he’d be Han Soloing all over the place, with a bad feeling about this. He wasn’t the only one, but Kel was my friend. I never left people behind if I had a choice. Just one more errand, and then we’d see how bad the opposition was.

“I get it. Love is worth fighting for.”

His face went pensive. “Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that is. That’s why you mustn’t give up on your young man, no matter what.”

The lump in my throat surprised me. “I won’t. I’m facing some pretty steep opposition, maybe even going up against nature itself, but if hell didn’t stop me, death won’t either.”

Booke gave a half smile. “Remind me never to cross you.”