I spared a cup of water to rinse off the healing furrow. Now that I could touch it directly, I could feel a slightly puckered new scar. I used a little more water to brush my teeth, and that made me feel more myself. I'd been told (mainly by Tarken) that I was almost extreme about being clean, but the two grigoris spent more time on grooming than I'd ever known adults to do. That night Paulina brushed her hair, and then washed her face with our precious water, before getting into her sleeping roll. First thing in the morning, Eli shaved, though his face hair was light enough that he could have waited another day. He, too, brushed his hair thoroughly. Before he tied it back, it hung over his shoulders in a light curtain. I'd never seen a man who wore his hair that long, except for the Indians. I stopped myself before I could run my hand over my head again. I'd remembered my last look in the mirror. I could tell my hair had already grown some. Soon it would be long enough to curl. Then there'd be the damn ringlets. They made me look like a child. But now I thought it was lucky I had thick hair; when it grew back, maybe the scar wouldn't be visible. That was vanity, and it was ridiculous to think about my hair when I faced so many more challenges. I forced myself to get busy packing up the few things we'd used. We got an early start, there being nothing else to do. I wasn't as familiar with this part of the country, but from my crew's previous visit I remembered that the terrain would get rougher. To reach a town sizeable enough to have a hotel by that night, we needed to make good time. We were able to gas up early at an isolated garage. I imagined the big trade there was fixing flat tires and taking care of overheated engines. As the day went on, we sighted people less and less. When we did, they were almost always on foot and staying parallel to the road, but not on it. We were close to the Texoma-Mexico border. From time to time, to get a better view, I stood up on the floorboard of the back seat with my head out of the air-roof, or whatever it was called. This annoyed Paulina, but I didn't care. Danger had sidled up to me and given me a nudge and a wink. About an hour after noon—we'd had a quick lunch—we were driving on a dirt road that wound through low, rocky hills. There were stands of oak and some boulders on either side of the road. Great cover. I thought of the last ambush, on the Corbin road. My nerves were strung high and tight. I looked up to see a buzzard riding the air, wings broad and beautiful against the clear blue, as we were rounding a bend. So I got knocked around a little when Paulina put on the brakes. There was a tree lying across the road, leaves still green. I could see the fresh cut on the trunk. "Ambush," I yelled, and here they came. I was standing up on the rear seat, shooting through the air-roof, before I finished saying it. I shot two of them with Jackhammer, and they went down like bags of sand. That left two. I winged only one of those, due to a lurch of the car. I could see him squirming on the ground and got off a second shot, which killed him. I had swung around to drop the last bandit when Eli popped through the hole alongside me. He was reaching into one of his vest pockets, and pulled out a stone, which he clutched. He said a few words. Before I could shove him to get him out of my way, Eli made the man's blood leave his body. It was an eye-catching way to kill someone, that's for sure. Eli dropped into the car like his feet had vanished from under him. Scared the shit out of me; I thought he'd gotten shot somehow. Turns out doing death magic takes a lot out of you, and some grigoris feel it sooner than others. Eli felt it sooner. A fifth bandit popped up from behind a boulder and began to run. I was so distracted by Eli that my quick shot just creased the bandit's shoulder. Paulina was out the passenger door and after her like a bullet looking for a body to hit. Paulina brought her down and left her moaning, by some means I couldn't see. Maybe she'd just tackled her hard. Then Paulina strolled back to turn off the car. I climbed out. Though the surprise was still making my hands quiver, I had brought down our attackers. While Paulina's and Eli's help had been nice, I could have done everything myself. After the disaster on the Corbin road, my relief was enormous. I let out a deep, shuddery breath, and I smiled at Paulina. Out of sheer surprise, she smiled back. Between us, we hauled Eli from the car and laid him under the shade of a tree. I was sitting by his side, my back against the tree trunk, when he came to, some ten, fifteen minutes later. Eli's broad face was a bad color, sort of gray, and his green eyes rolled toward me, checking who I was. I could tell he recognized me. "Listen, wizard," I said. "Don't ever put your head between me and my shot again. I coulda blown your skull away." "Sorry," he said, but he didn't sound sorry. He, too, almost smiled. "I wanted to try the spell." "Yeah, okay." I handed him a canteen with the screw top removed, and he raised his head with some difficulty to take a swallow. I took the canteen and had a swig myself. "You needed a rock for that?" "I invoked the spell with the rock. It was residing in the stone, I'd put it there, and I said a word of power to make it active." "Quite a spell." "Extreme," he agreed. We had some shade from the bright sun. The landscape around us had woken up since the gunshots had faded. I could hear bugs moving and birds making their little noises. A few yards away I saw a quick movement. A very large spider was making its way to the west, getting away from us with good speed. It was kind of peaceful, now that our enemies were dead and we were not. After a moment Eli said, "Where's Paulina?" "Interrogating the one left alive." I had just learned "interrogating" was another word for torture. "Oh. Just a bandit, surely? Not after us in particular?" He turned his head to one side as if he was looking for her. "Yeah, well. She seems to want to make certain sure." A voice rose and fell, babbling like a child's. "Is that who's talking?" He looked at me. "I think the gal's telling Paulina what she had for supper five years ago. Your friend can make people talk." "Not you, though." "I'll talk when I got something to say. Want some more water?" I said. "Please." Eli lifted his head a little and I unscrewed the canteen again. This time he propped himself up on an elbow and took a bigger drink. He sighed and lay back down. "How much longer you got to stay flat?" I said after a while, though I wasn't anxious to be in the car again. "A little while." Eli's eyes closed, so I shut up. After a minute he said, "You see how bright the sun is?" "Yeah." "But we are in the shade right now. Not just the tree shade, but we're in the shadow of the cloud overhead." "Yeah. What of it?" "Sometimes I feel like that," he said, sounding almost drowsy. "I serve the tsar, and he's the sun. The people who turn and twist in their politics under him, they're the clouds. And we're the people who get caught in the shadows." "That doesn't make a lick of sense," I said, but I knew what he was talking about. They had their mission, I thought with a lot of grimness. I had mine. I wondered what would happen to me if they discovered I'd deceived them about who my real father was. Eli lay silent for a while after that. The breeze picked up a strand of his hair and blew it across his face. With a little hesitation, I brushed it to the side. He didn't move. Good. The natural sounds of the land were interrupted only by the distant rise and fall of the bandit's voice. From her Spanish, she'd come across the border from Mexico. I'd checked the pockets of the others. One had Mexican papers, the others were Texomans. The next time I looked down, Eli's eyes were open. "You've had to do this often?" I said. "Stop bandits? Only once or twice. You did very well." "It's my living," I said. "How long?" "How long have I been a gunnie? Since I got out of school. At first with whoever needed an extra hand, and then with Tarken and Martin and Galilee." "Your mother didn't have other plans for you?" "Did your folks have other plans for you?" I said. He laughed, just a little, and then winced. "Not this," he admitted. "But it was my talent, and the best service I could offer my tsar." A shriek rose in the air and was abruptly cut off. After a moment Paulina came into view. She was wiping off a knife on the kerchief I'd last seen on the wounded woman's neck. Guess "wounded" wasn't the correct term anymore. "Random bandit," she said. "If there was some kind of targeting, she didn't know anything about it." The idea that they'd been waiting for us, just us, to come along . . . I'd wondered about that. This was a good place for an ambush, out in the middle of nothing, no witnesses. If I had been a thief, I'd have picked this spot. But you might wait for days for a good enough target to pass through. On the other hand, if you knew someone was very likely to use this road because it was the obvious route to Juárez . . . We might not be the only people who'd talked to Becky Blue Eyes about the death of Oleg Karkarov. That was a question I'd never thought to put to her. I'd used up some of Eli's unconscious time—while Paulina had been interrogating the former surviving bandit—by tying a rope to the tree and then to the hitch on the rear of the car. Very carefully I'd pulled the tree out of the way. Paulina seemed surprised to find the road cleared. "You did that?" she said, looking down at me. I nodded. Who the fuck else would have done it? "You know how to drive?" "Part of a smuggling crew," I reminded her.
"Then you can drive now." "I can't drive and shoot at the same time, Paulina. You hired me to shoot." She wanted to argue. She didn't like that I made sense. Her mouth got all puckered. "Gunnie's right," Eli said. He struggled to sit up, and Paulina was on the ground instantly, putting an arm behind him. I didn't think they were lovers, but I knew it would be a mistake to touch Eli in front of Paulina. I went over to the car, holding open the passenger door. He would not feel well enough to drive. Paulina got him there and into the car, and then she took the driver's seat. I got into the back. We had spent well over an hour by this road. We wouldn't get to the larger town we'd hoped to reach by dusk. If we didn't want to camp again, and I didn't, we'd have to spend the night at the next small settlement on the map. It was about two hours' drive away, and it was named Mil Flores—Thousand Flowers. We got there about five. I spotted a hotel and a restaurant and a garage. That persuaded Paulina that Mil Flores was a good stopping place. We might have driven longer, tried to make the larger town, if Eli hadn't been so ragged. He was still a little wobbly. The instant Paulina noticed this, she was determined to stop. Eli was clearly the center of her universe. If you'd asked me, I'd have guessed Paulina would be a ruthless boss to any apprentice or minion, along the lines of "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." We went into the hotel, a weather-beaten two-story wooden building, to see about rooms. We were able to park right by the step up to the porch. Comstock's Hotel was nothing much inside. I expected Paulina and Eli to stick up their noses, but they didn't. At least it seemed clean, if the wood was rough and splintery and the few carpets almost worn through. The man at the desk didn't have a gun out on the counter, always a good sign. Also, he didn't blink an eye at Paulina's tattoos or Eli's grigori vest, though you could tell he noticed those things. Me, he ignored. I was getting used to it. There were two rooms free. Paulina said she and I could share one, and Eli would have the other. That kind of surprised me. I would have thought she and Eli would bunk together. When she'd paid and gotten the keys, Paulina asked if the hotel dining room was open for supper and breakfast (it was). She'd turned away when the host said to me, "Come down from the north?" "More or less," I said. "Uneventful trip?" he asked. So he was more than just curious. "We saw a coyote and a buzzard and a few hundred snakes," I said. "Why?" "Wondered if your friend here had been in a fight," the host said. Eli was leaning against the wall, looking like he needed a bed. "By the way, I'm Jim Comstock." "Jim, my friend ate something bad," I said, smiling. "Nothing to do for that but get out of the car and let his stomach settle." Paulina and Eli had their own bags. I picked up my gun bag and my personal bag and went up the stairs, which were wooden and noisy. You couldn't sneak out of here, for sure. On the other hand, we wouldn't be taken by surprise. We came to Eli's room first. When he unlocked his door, I saw a double bed with a washstand. The next door was ours, and the door after that was labeled BATHROOM. I glanced inside to see it was clean and held a big white bathtub and toilet. Eli went directly to the bed, pulled off his boots, and was prone in less time than it takes to tell, leaving me to pull his door shut. Paulina and I went into our room. It held two narrow beds but was otherwise the same as Eli's. I'd seen much worse. Since Paulina avoided conversation by lying down with her eyes closed, just like Eli, I took clean clothes and my towel and soap to the bathroom. The window was open and a breeze was coming in, and that side of the hotel was in shade, so it wasn't horribly hot. Though I needed more alone time, I couldn't linger. Someone else might need the room. I quickly washed myself, and then I washed everything I'd had on. I pulled on some fresh Levi's and a sleeveless blouse with a bigger one over it to camouflage the gun belt. Clean and wearing clean clothes, I felt like a better person. Back in the room, I opened the window to hang my clothes out. In the dry heat, with the breeze, they wouldn't be wet for long. As soon as I lay down, Paulina got up. She'd decided I'd had such a good idea, she'd duplicate it. I took a nap while she was in the bathroom. I woke up ten or fifteen minutes later. My roommate was coming in wrapped in a towel, her clothes in hand. Not modest, then. She fished clean clothes out of her bag and began to dress. When I spoke, she jumped a little. "The hotel owner, Jim. Maybe those were his buddies, back on the road." She sat down on her bed and stared at me while she combed her long, pale hair. "Why do you think that may be so?" "He didn't expect to see anyone driving in from that side of town. Might be another reason for that. Might not." I was pretty confident this little hole in the road didn't get more than a handful of visitors, just enough to keep the hotel, and the whorehouse next door, open. So it could be that Jim Comstock knew there were bandits on the incoming road, and was pleased we'd dodged them so he could have our business. Or it could be he was surprised we'd made it into Mil Flores, because he'd expected we would be shot before we got there. "We should have hidden the bodies better." Paulina's mouth turned down, sour. I nodded. "We can hope three things. One, Jim Comstock doesn't know the dead guys from Adam. Two, if someone does find the bodies, maybe Jim won't believe it was us because we don't look that scary." Though if anyone talked to Paulina for more than five minutes, that wouldn't fly. Plus, the tats. "The other thing?" "Three, we can hope if Jim's in on it, no one else is. If they all know . . ." The grigori stared at me without seeing me. "The whole town," she said slowly. Paulina was thinking hard, which was a good thing. "Or even part of it," I said. If the town knew about the bandits—if they were Uncle Willy and Cousin Bart and Aunt Freda to half the people of Mil Flores—we were as good as dead if the bodies were found before we left. "If we tried to leave now—after paying for the rooms—we might as well hang out a sign saying, 'We Did It.'" I wasn't really joking. "I'll tell Eli," Paulina said. There was an interior door between our rooms. She knocked on it softly. After a moment Eli answered. He'd cleaned up a little. He looked as though he felt much better. Paulina beckoned him to come into our room. They sat on her bed, so she could keep her voice soft while she explained the situation to him. "This is what the gunnie thinks," she said to begin with. Somewhat to my surprise, it didn't sound like she was advising him to take it with a grain of salt. More like she was giving me credit. "We should stay, and get as early a start as we can," he said, though he didn't sound sure. "Tonight," I said, "after we eat, we come up here, we take turns sleeping. Or I can sleep in the car, make sure no one lets the air out of the tires tonight. In case they come for us." Eli met my eyes. I had no idea what he was thinking. Paulina, however, was real straightforward. She said, "What if they kill you before you can yell, and then let the air out of the tires?" "I guess I won't care too much what happens after that," I said, and she flushed, red flaring up her cheeks behind the blue tattoos. Eli smiled before he could stop himself. "We can make sure everyone in the town knows we're here," he said. "It's not a great idea, but it's better than doing nothing. If there are townsfolk who know nothing about the bandits, they might help us if we need it. At least they'll be able to point our people in the right direction, should we go missing." "I can try to kill them all, take them unawares," I said. "Myself, I think that's a mistake, but you're the bosses." Paulina looked at me in a weird way, as though I'd crawled out from under a rock. "I said I thought that was a mistake," I told her after an uneasy moment. This was the woman who had tortured a bandit to death that afternoon. "Maybe it would only take killing the man downstairs," Eli said. "That Jim Comstock." I spread my hands as though to ask, Do you want me to do that? "Let's go down to supper," he said. "See how Jim smells." After a second I got that he wasn't referring to food. I wondered what he could pick up from a person's smell. Since I'd always thought my ability to catch the smell of magic was unique, I didn't like the idea that all people with grigori blood could smell things about other people. Put me firmly in the grigori camp. It would have looked very strange to carry Jackhammer when I went down to supper. I did wear my Colts, but the loose shirt worn over my sleeveless blouse was a polite camouflage. Downstairs the ceiling fans moved the limp air around in a halfhearted way, and the smell of fried chicken came from the kitchen at the back. I had been hungry, but now I was all geared up inside, kind of twitchy, ready for action. Jim appeared, with an apron wrapped around him, and waved his hand to indicate we should sit anywhere we liked. There were only two other people in the room, a plain woman in her forties in a conservative dress, and a man who looked like he chewed nails for a living. All the tables were picnic style, with long benches on either side. Hard to get out of quick; that wasn't good. I sat facing the kitchen door, and the grigoris sat across from me. There were tablecloths covering the planks of the table; once, the blue-and-green stripes might have looked nice. Now the cloth, though clean, was marked with countless stains and holes. My mom would not have used them for rags. At least the droopy cloth provided cover. I drew my right-hand pistol to have it at the ready. I laid it carefully on the bench right beside me. That way my hands were visible and empty. When Jim pushed through the swinging kitchen door, I tensed, but he was carrying only a platter with fried chicken piled on it, and a bowl of mashed potatoes. In another trip he brought the gravy and the green beans. Third trip, biscuits. He served the three tables the same way, except the single people got smaller bowls. I made myself eat. This was good food, and anytime good food was in front of you . . . you ate. The wizards cut up their chicken with knives and ate it with a fork. Picking it up was fine for me. Jim came by to chatter every few minutes, inquiring about the food, how our rooms were. He stuck in questions about where we'd come from and where we were going. He directed all his palaver at Paulina and Eli. He'd definitely put me in the hired-help category. Jim might have been naturally curious. Or he might have been calculating how many people would know or care if we disappeared. When we finished eating, Paulina asked him if there was a store that had women's blouses. "Well, there'll be shirts and such at Godley's Store, across the street and one north," he said. "Should be open for a little while." "We'll go there," she said. We all got up at once, as if we'd practiced. My gun was back in its holster by the time I stood. As soon as we came out onto the wooden sidewalk, right by the Celebrity Tourer, we saw the sign reading GODLEY'S. We sauntered across the packed dirt of the road, looking around as if the quiet street deserved some studying. I checked the rooftops. I checked the windows. We came to the barbershop, which had a big glass window. We beheld the biggest gathering we'd seen in Mil Flores: four men, all eyeing us hopefully. "I think I'll get a shave," Eli said, as if an evening shave was simply a great idea. I didn't like us splitting up, but before I could speak, Eli had pushed open the door. I could see him nodding to the men, who nodded back, smiling. They were pretty excited at the prospect of talking to a stranger, and a real exotic one at that. Paulina and I went into Godley's Store. Though it had a narrow front, it ran deep, a real cave of anything you could want. Everywhere I looked, there were goods for sale. Every inch of space, except what had to be left open for walking, was lined with shelves and racks and bins and barrels. I found that Godley's sold dry goods ranging from clothes to pots and dish soap and clothespins. Paulina was enthralled. I had to figure she'd never been in a country store before. While she slowly browsed through stacked shirts and ladies' underwear and frying pans, I made common ground with the girl behind the counter, a Godley daughter named Manda. She was quite the flirt, and interested in flirting with me, which was a mild surprise. So I was pleasant in return. Why not? Paulina came to the counter with a couple of things and got out the money to pay. While Paulina was counting her change, Manda stared at Paulina's tattoos. If Paulina was having a new experience, so was Manda. She'd clearly never seen a grigori. I sure wished Paulina hadn't been so proud of being a wizard that she'd gotten inked on her face, and it wasn't the first or last time I'd think that. "Ain't you scared of being with her?" Manda whispered after Paulina had walked out the door. First. Before I could check. "I'm getting used to it," I said. "They pay me good money." I bid farewell to Manda as though I'd enjoyed talking to her, and that was the truth, as far as it went. "Friendly girl," Paulina said as we walked back to the hotel in a very leisurely way. I nodded. "Seemed okay," I said. "Paulina, do you have to get the tattoos? Is it part of the job?" Paulina debated for a minute over whether to answer. "My guild rules tell me what tattoos I should get, and in which order," she said, deciding to tell me the truth. "At least in part. They all have some magical significance. To put some on my face, that was my decision. I am committed to my craft." That was a pretty bold commitment. "Guilds. That would be like a union? How many are there, for wizards?" I might as well ask, since she was in what passed for a chatty mood with Paulina. "Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Healing, Death," she said. "But a death wizard can deliver a baby and heal small wounds, an earth wizard can provide wind to get you across an ocean. Or take that wind away. It's not that you lack power in other areas, but you specialize in what is your strongest talent." That was the longest speech Paulina had ever made in my presence. "So your guild is . . . ?" "If you see this symbol"—and here Paulina tapped her face, against what looked like some jagged mountain peaks—"you know the person is a fire wizard." "I would have thought you were a death wizard." She knew her way around a torture. "No. It's simply one of my talents." Paulina smiled. It was as unpleasant a smile as I've ever seen. "If I were a death wizard, we wouldn't need a gunnie." And that would have suited Paulina just fine. I could smell Eli coming out of the barbershop from ten feet away. "Yow," I said, unable to stop myself. The plain woman who was also a guest at the hotel, out for an evening stroll, turned her head and tried not to smile too broadly. Paulina's face tightened like someone had pulled a string on her head. "Smells like a whorehouse," she said. Eli looked embarrassed as we got closer, probably because we were making gagging noises. "Some friends you are!" he called in a hearty voice. I caught a glimpse of the barbershop men, laughing fit to burst as the plain woman stepped inside the shop, still smiling. There was really not much to do here. Eli fell into step with us. Paulina showed him the shirt she'd bought at Godley's. We all smiled at one another, because everyone (meaning maybe six people) was looking at us, the strangers. I was glad to see other townspeople around. Meant nothing was about to happen, I thought. "Did you learn anything?" she asked. "I learned a lot," Eli said. "If you want to know how Hank Murphy's cow got out and ate everything in Sister Butter's garden." "We had less luck than that," Paulina said. "Unless you want to count the fact that Gunnie could have a bedmate tonight if she so chose." I shrugged. "Just working my personal charm with no wizardry at all," I said modestly. They were a little startled, and then they laughed. For a flash of a moment, I felt comfortable, back with my crew. Just a flash. Then Paulina drew us under the awning of a dilapidated restaurant across the street from the hotel. Come to find out, Paulina had been brooding as she looked through shirts in Godley's. "Those men today on the road, they could have done us in if you hadn't been quick and we two hadn't been lethal. We cannot be killed by some drabs here so far from home. Our holy father has sent us on a mission." Paulina didn't mean that the two of them couldn't be killed, period. She meant that two powerful grigoris like her and Eli simply couldn't afford to be killed before they'd done their duty. "Listen to me, Paulina," I said. "All it takes is one of these 'drabs' on a roof with a rifle, like that one over there, and your damn mission is up in smoke." "Truly?" Eli said, smiling at me as if I'd said something amusing. He wanted us to act like we'd noticed nothing. That was a good idea. "Truly," I said, smiling back and ignoring his little moment of surprise. "He can't see us right now because of the awning, so he's not going to shoot. I don't know if Mil Flores keeps a guard up there all the time, or if this is more of the same incident. Josip the Tatar. The ambush on the road. Adds up." "Can you kill him, and we'll jump in the car and go?" Paulina couldn't bring herself to smile, but at least she didn't look completely grim. "Are you good enough with the pistol?" "Of course I am. But I'll have to leave my rifles if we do that," I said. They were up in the room. "Don't want to." "Got the car key?" Paulina asked Eli. "Sure." The friendly smile was still on his face. But their bodies were getting all tense. I could tell which way the grigoris were going to jump. "Listen to me," I said, gripping Eli by the elbow. "What if they've disabled the car? If we jump in it and don't go anywhere, that's as good as a signed confession that we're guilty of something. And we'd get shot real easy cooped up in the car." "Tires look okay," Eli said after a sideways glance. "Isn't there something dripping underneath?" The car was parked in front of the hotel's porch like an obedient horse. A horse that had peed. There was a dark puddle of something under it. "Damn!" Eli exclaimed in a normal voice. "My goodness!" The plain woman passed us again on her way into the hotel. She was everywhere. She stood in the street, looking at us huddled under the awning. "What happened to your car?" "Don't know yet," I said tersely, and she nodded. When we didn't move, the plain woman said, "Aren't you going to go see?" Yeah, that would be the next step. We couldn't stand under this awning forever. "We're trying to decide if we want a piece of pie," Paulina said, nodding at the restaurant door. "Oh! Well, it's not as good as Jim's." The plain woman gave us a doubtful look and went across the street and into the hotel. My right hand was on my gun, in what I hoped was a casual gesture. My skin itched, reacting to magic somewhere, maybe just the two grigoris shedding power because they were anxious. "We need to get across the street," I said, not able to stand this dawdling any longer. I drew both guns. Something was about to happen, my kind of something. Eli and Paulina looked at me. They were actually waiting for me to tell them what to do. I didn't want this to come to a shoot-out. I wanted us to get out of here in the morning without being killed. Without killing anybody. My guns held down by my side, I stepped out from under the awning, keeping my head turned toward the car. But my eyes were looking up. The man was still on the roof of the house directly across the street. Now he stood up. But he would wait for the grigoris to venture into the open street. I turned my head slightly so he could see I was talking to my companions. "Come on!" I said cheerfully and loudly. "Let's see about dessert." They hesitated, then stepped into the open. He snapped his rifle to his shoulder. I could just make out his brown face under the brim of his hat, focused, intense. But I'd dropped to a crouch, my pistols came up faster, and I shot him square in the chest. He fell (with a lot of drama) over the low parapet surrounding the roof, after which he slithered down the tin awning in an awful, limp way. Finally, his body landed in the street with a thud, and his rifle bounced beside it. Once heard, never forgotten, that sound. For just a moment, after he'd sprawled in the dust, everything was silent. Paulina and Eli stared at the body while I turned in a quick circle, scanning the rooftops, guns up. There was no one else. After those seconds people came boiling out of the buildings like fire ants from a mound. Where had they all been earlier? His trigger finger had pressed down when I'd hit him. I looked at my two charges; they looked fine, just startled. At least the shot hadn't hit either of them. I wondered where it had gone. A quick look didn't find anyone else who was bleeding. There was a lot of shouting, but I was too busy watching all the hands to pay any attention. Seemed sure we'd have to move fast. I had my doubts that the car would start, not with that puddle of fluid underneath. As I'd told the grigoris, abandoning our bags would be a heavy blow. I was going to need all the firepower I could muster. And who knew what the grigoris had in their bags, besides clean underwear? The hotel proprietor had rushed out onto the porch. Jim Comstock bellowed, "Shut the hell up!" And pretty quick everyone did. If they had a mayor here, Jim was it. "Are you all okay?" Jim asked. I had to assume he was asking us. I didn't look at Paulina and Eli. I'd seen they weren't bleeding. I was too busy being sure no one else was aiming at them. "I'm real nervous," I said, to point out how quick I'd be to use the guns again, "but I'm not shot." "You two?" he asked Paulina and Eli. "I'm missing some hair," Eli said, his voice calm. "That bullet passed close. But I have plenty to go on with." He even sounded a little amused. I could feel the heat coming off Paulina after she heard how close the stray bullet had passed. Yep, her hands were twitching. She was ready to exercise her own talent. I didn't stop scanning the crowd. The tension was getting to me, though, and I knew I couldn't keep my alert much longer. If they swarmed us . . . "Who is it?" Jim called to the people who'd formed a cluster around the body. If he already knew, he was a good actor. "It's a stranger, Jim," said Manda, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. She was loving the drama. She was bent over the body. Strong stomach. "I never seen him before." There was a murmur then, passing through the crowd: surprise. "He's got some tattoos, not as many as the lady," Manda called. You could hear the breaths drawn in. This was better than a movie. Paulina said, "Let me see." She didn't have to say it twice. Every person between Paulina and the dead man stepped aside to form an aisle. The dust underneath the body was soaking up the blood. He'd landed on his back, so the wound was bleeding out through the exit hole. Paulina squatted and looked at him hard. "Gunnie," Paulina said, like I was her hunting dog and she was calling me to heel. I felt like biting or growling, sure enough. I went to stand by the body. Paulina's white, bony fingers were unbuttoning the top two buttons of the dead grigori's shirt. She glanced up at me, like she was saying, What are you waiting for? I was supposed to help her undress the body. I was less than dust in Paulina's view, I understood that. Also, she was paying me more than I'd ever been paid for a job. But her attitude that I had to jump to any task (besides shooting) when she said "jump" was beginning to poke me like a sharp stick. Two things held me back from telling her that. It wouldn't be good policy to start a snarling contest in public. And I had a respect for her abilities. Also, it was smart to keep on the good side of Paulina. If she had one. So I knelt on the other side of the dead man, and I eased the shirt apart so she could see his tats. The symbols covered as much of his chest as I could see, which was not a lot. But I knew a few things about him after I'd looked at them. The crowd did a lot of oohing and aahing. Good background talk. Paulina looked up at Eli, who had come to stand by us. You could tell that for her he was the only other person there. Then they both looked down at the man's skin. "He's not a wizard," she told Eli, as if there weren't thirty or forty people listening who should not know our business. "Almost all of these are unskilled tattoos. But one of them is a protection symbol, that's from a guild." "Then it's lucky I shot him," I said. She looked at me thoughtfully. Once again I misliked the feeling that I'd gotten her notice. "Yes," she said. "Lucky." I leaned over close to her ear. "Maybe we should save this conversation for later, after we look at the body in private." Paulina gave me a good hard stare. She nodded. "Do you know him?" Jim Comstock asked from behind me. "No," said Eli. "I've never seen him before." Paulina and I shook our heads. There was more rumble among the townsfolk. "Well, he didn't take a shot at you for nothing," Manda said. Lots of sense, that girl. Paulina brushed her hands against her pants as if she could remove the dead-man cooties. She stood in one swift move, like an animal. Eli reached down a hand to help me. I had more sense than to take it, with Paulina standing right there. I stood, too, but I couldn't match her ease. It was like she'd oiled her joints. "Is there a sheriff?" she asked our host. There was a kind of ripple of chuckling, and it made its way through the little crowd. "No," Jim said. "We got enough troubles without a sheriff."
"Then it doesn't make any difference what we do with the body," I said to Jim. "You got no beef with me killing him, I take it." "He wasn't shooting at none of us," Jim said, and there was a lot of wise head nodding. This had been our problem to solve, the people of Mil Flores agreed. How I'd solved it was my business. "Where can we take the body?" Paulina was looking around like a funeral parlor would pop up in front of her. "I need to look at him more closely." This plan did not make a good impression on the people of Mil Flores. Of course, Paulina didn't care, if she noticed at all. The plain woman had drawn near. She was wearing a flower-patterned dress that came to the middle of her calves, and now she'd thrown on a hat. It was a broad-brimmed straw hat with a white ribbon around the crown. Other than the ribbon, and the rose and pink of the dress, she was as blank a woman as I'd ever seen. Medium everything: looks, build, coloring, age. "I've got a wagon out back," she said. "You just want a gander at this fella, you can use it to get him off the ground and out of the view of these good people." "Thank you," Eli said. "I'm Eli Savarov, my companion is Paulina Coopersmith, and the gunnie is Lizbeth Rose." "Belinda Trotter," the woman said, but her voice got drowned by a few exclamations of surprise. "You're Gunnie Rose?" Manda said, her voice rising with every word. My traveling companions stared at her. Then at me. I nodded, hoping it would stop there. But of course it didn't. "I've heard of you," Jim Comstock said slowly. "Is it true that—" Manda was dragging me to disaster. "I don't care to talk about my living," I said, turning to look directly into her eyes, to share my dislike on the way this talk was going. To give her credit, she stopped dead. "Of course not," she said. "Your business." "Where's that wagon, Miss Trotter?" I wanted to get the conversation going in another direction. "Through the alley and turn right," Miss Trotter said. "Horses are in the stable, but the wagon is standing empty." Eli stepped into position to pick up the dead man's feet, so Paulina made a move toward the head, but a man (surely the blacksmith, from his arms and shoulders) leaped to the task to spare her. Paulina tried to seem pleased and grateful, but she looked more like she'd sucked on a salted lemon. Paulina liked to carry her own bodies, I figured. I trailed behind the little parade, keeping an eye out, which is what I do best. I'd checked my ammo, of course. The rooftops were clear. The sidewalks were clear. Even Manda had left, after a last longing look at me. The alley lay between the hotel and the whorehouse. The prostitutes were at their windows, woken by the sound of the gunplay. It was still a bit early for their working day to be beginning. This late in the spring, the sun would go down around seven thirty. They had the time and inclination to have a good look-see. There were three women and one young man, two more than I would've guessed for a place the size of Mil Flores. I could feel their eyes on us as Eli and the blacksmith made their way to the back of the hotel, where an open yard contained a couple of wooden chairs and a table and Miss Trotter's empty wagon. The two men swung the body up onto the flat bed of the wagon. The dead man's head was at the rear. His shirt was spread wider now. It's always something to recognize, how still the dead are. Ten minutes ago he'd moved and breathed and thought and wanted, and he'd done his best to kill us. Now all that didn't matter to him. I spared another look around, checking the crowd for intent and weapons, in case anyone else wanted to get that way. But the people of Mil Flores had had enough of the drama, and they were melting away. Unless the whores were hostile, and they sure didn't seem to be, or the blacksmith went crazy, we were secure this moment. I scanned the back windows of the hotel and saw only the man who'd been sharing the dining room earlier. He scowled when he saw me mark him, and he turned away right quick. I made a note in my head to find out who he was. Paulina appeared to expect Miss Trotter would leave once she'd escorted us to the wagon, but that didn't happen. Donating her wagon had been the price of admission, apparently. The woman stood waiting for whatever would happen next, and her silly, flowery dress made her look even more out of place. "Need me anymore?" the blacksmith asked Eli. Eli thanked him and slipped the man some coins. The smith made his way back to whatever he'd been doing before, glad to leave us with the dead man. Paulina looked at Miss Trotter, and I could see Paulina hoped Miss Trotter would profit from the smith's example. Not going to happen. Miss Trotter met Paulina's gaze with a bland look. The wagon bed was high for me, so I used a mounting block to finish unbuttoning the body's shirt before Paulina could tell me to. I unbuckled his belt, too, and slid it out of the loops. It was a good piece of leather, and undamaged. I rolled it up and put it aside, catching Eli's look of surprise from the corner of my eye. Paulina pulled the corpse's boots off, which didn't surprise me. I climbed down from the block to take them from her, and I set them aside to examine later, along with the belt. When Paulina grabbed a leg of his pants, I waited to see if Miss Curious Trotter would take the other—she was standing right there—but she just waited with the same bright-eyed curiosity. So I obliged with that, too. I'd never taken the pants off a dead man. Wasn't pleasant. Then Paulina did something I actually enjoyed. She reached into one of her vest pockets and withdrew some dried herbs. She tossed them over the corpse and said something in a tongue I couldn't make out, and the smell vanished. That was a very useful spell. I wondered if I could learn that one. But most likely, I wasn't qualified. While I was appreciating the nicer air, I went through the dead man's pant pockets. "His name was Marcial Montes," I told whoever wanted to listen. The grigoris shook their heads at the same time. Not a name they knew. Miss Trotter didn't blink. Paulina leaned over the wagon on one side to study Montes's tattoos in more detail. Eli stationed himself at the other side. They muttered to each other (in Russian, I guess) and pointed to this or that. The whores, crammed in two windows, were fascinated. The young man came out onto the porch and beckoned to me when no one else was looking. After a glance around I went over to him. He was maybe seventeen, slim and blond, and cute enough I was surprised he wasn't somewhere busier. "Andy," he said after he'd had a good look at the healing furrow on my scalp. "Lizbeth Rose." "The Lizbeth Rose? The one who shot her—" "Big ears here," I cautioned him. "Ohhhhhhkay. So, what are the grigoris doing?" I shrugged. "The dead man tried to kill us. They're looking at his ink. Means nothing to them. As you can tell if you look at Paulina's face." "She's a tall drink of vinegar," Andy said after he'd had a look at Paulina. I guessed he had to be a good judge of character in his profession. "You ever seen the dead man before?" I asked. "Montes, his name is." Andy shook his head. "The woman who owns the wagon, she's been in Mil Flores two days," he said. "She didn't bring anything in on it. No one knows what she's planning on taking out. Had to bring it along with her for some reason. Why?" This was good information. "I appreciate your taking the time to tell me," I said politely. "Please let me give you something for your trouble." I handed Andy a couple of the Holy Russian coins Eli had given me for expenses, and the boy slipped them into his pocket with a happy smile. Paulina glanced over our way once and looked back at the body with no change of expression. "She'll be over tonight," Andy said. "No!" I said, truly surprised. "For you or for the ladies?" "Me," he said with the same certainty. "She'll act like she's in charge, but she'll be glad when I let her know I am." Well, he'd be the expert. But before I went back to join my little corpse-stripping party, I said, "Andy, you watch out for her. She's a killer, and she can do some gruesome shit." Andy looked at me and smiled. "Well," he said, "you oughtta know. I'd be happy to see you later, if you want to come over." I was real popular in Mil Flores. Maybe I should move here, after this was over. I laughed and bid him good-bye. Now that the two grigoris had backed off, I had a look at the dead man myself. I wanted to be sure what I'd noticed earlier was true. Montes did have tattoos, and one of them looked similar to the wizards', but the ones on his chest had not been made by the same hand. They were colorful, and they consisted of animal figures. The blue one, the one that looked grigori-like, was a symbol, and Paulina had already identified that one. "Eli, Paulina. Look here. Lobo Gris," I said, tapping the snarling canine head in the middle of his chest. They turned from their quiet conversation to join me at the wagon. The Trotter woman was still observing with bright-eyed interest. I had to show them this. It was hard to ignore her. Paulina gave me the look I was coming to know, the dog-is-talking look—wonder crossed with irritation. "What do you mean?" she asked. These HRE grigoris didn't know shit. "Lobo Gris, Gray Wolf. It's a criminal crew in Mexico, where gray wolves live. Marcial Montes was a member." "Gray wolves are different from the wolves in Canada?" Eli looked down at me with nothing but interest, at least that I could tell. "They're smaller. But their size doesn't make them less dangerous, 'cause they hunt in big packs. Which is the point of naming a crew after them." Eli should have been concentrating on what I was saying, because it was important, but I felt his eyes wandering to my scalp. Was he sidetracked by the puckered scar? It was healing well, but it wasn't pretty. Miss Trotter said, "I've heard of them." A second later she was exchanging remarks with Paulina, who was trying to be subtle about persuading the woman to leave the yard. They looked good to talk at cross-purposes for a few minutes. "Ask Trotter what she has the wagon for," I said on the quiet. "She must have brought cargo in on it," Eli said, as if I was missing something real obvious. "No, she didn't," I said. "One of the whores said it came in empty." I didn't look up to get his reaction. He'd believe me, or he wouldn't. I stepped away from him to spend a little more time looking at the body of Marcial Montes. I identified not only the crew tattoo, but a few more. "This is his nagual," I told Eli, who was sticking with me instead of doing what I'd asked. I touched one outline. "That is?" I would have thought a grigori would know this. "His spirit animal, in the old language. In Spanish, zopilote. That means vulture." "The spirit animal gave him special talent? Protection?" "He might have believed so." He'd been mistaken. "I don't know what . . . attributes . . . go with each animal.El chamán tells you. He figures out your spirit animal by using your birth date. It's not cheap." When you're in my business, people talk about protection a lot. "So what does this tell you about this Marcial Montes?" Eli asked, as if he really wanted to know the answer. "He was hired help. Someone approached his crew and asked to hire someone for a murder, and the crew boss picked Montes for the job. See? He's got the death symbol." I touched the skull on his left shoulder. "So he was okay with killing. He'd done it before. And he'd made a decent amount of money doing it. The tats and his clothes and his rifle were expensive. He was good." I glanced over at the rifle, another Winchester, newer than my grandfather's. I was pleased to have it in my little arsenal. "You're better." "So far," I said. "Maybe Montes hired the bandits from this afternoon, too. He himself would be the fallback, in case the bandits didn't stop us." "Who do you think he was trying to kill?" Eli asked. "You and Paulina," I said, trying hard not to sound like I thought that was a stupid question. "The bullet came mighty close to you." "Because I would have sworn he was trying to kill you," Eli said in a calm and conversational way, and I felt a shiver down my back. "I think you hit him enough to make his aim go wide." I had. I just hadn't looked at it that way. "Don't know why he would be aiming for me, unless he thought that'd leave you unprotected," I said, trying to cast off that creepy feeling. "What are you going to do about fixing the car? It's getting on to dark." I needed to give him something else to chew on before I walked away. We'd ventured into dangerous territory. If Eli was right, someone knew everything about the grigoris' mission, and everything about me. If that was so, I'd have to tell the grigoris everything, too. I sure didn't want to have that conversation. Eli took the hint and headed off to the only local mechanic's shop, hoping to talk to the man before it turned dark. I left Paulina and Miss Trotter still talking, though Paulina was looking very impatient. I got the rifle and took it in with me. Jim Comstock was sweeping the lobby. He stopped when he saw me. "Good with a gun," he said, by way of greeting. "My job. You know why that Belinda Trotter is here?" He wasn't surprised I was asking. "She says she's on her way to Juárez to pick up a load of medical supplies for her clinic." That was a believable reason for her trip. Medicine was cheaper in Mexico. The only other major manufacturers of medicines were in Canada and Britannia, so it had to travel a far way, which jacked up the price. Of course, those medicines were purer. "Where is it? The clinic?" "In Texoma, north of here," Jim said. He was smiling. Everything in Texoma was north of here. "But she's lingered," I said. "Says her mules were tired out, needed a rest." Which Jim didn't believe any more than I did. "You all going to stay the night, or are your friends spooked?" "Depends on them," I said. "I'm just the help. I guess they'll tell me before I start to climb in bed." Jim nodded and went back to his sweeping. The lobby was clean. I figured he'd been waiting for me to come in to see if I had any questions. I glanced out the door again, to see Eli and a dark man I figured for the mechanic standing beside the Celebrity Tourer. The dark man had looked under the car, I could tell by the dust on his jeans. Eli looked pleased at whatever the mechanic was telling him, so I figured the mechanic had the right part to fix the car, or it hadn't been bad broken. Dark fell soon after that. The grigoris and Miss Trotter came in and joined the single man, who was sitting in the parlor. There were some lamps on. The electricity was steadier in Mil Flores than I'd expected. Several things about Mil Flores were not square with the appearance of it. The well-stocked stores. The number of barbers and whores. The presence of a full-size hotel. I was thinking about that while I sat in a corner chair in the parlor. I didn't want to talk myself, but to listen. In my opinion, these four new friends were doing enough chitchatting for seven or eight people. Miss Trotter talked about the hospital in Juárez where she bought her medical supplies, and about her clinic. Though she never pinpointed the location of this clinic. Mr. Parsons, the single man, talked about the notions he had in his sample bag: needles, thread, thimbles, patterns, scissors, shears, powder compacts, perfume, fancy writing paper. He was trying hard to interest Paulina, but soon Paulina looked even more bored than I was. Mr. Parsons didn't seem to be a very good salesman, if he was targeting Paulina as a woman who needed a thimble. Belinda Trotter told us she'd already seen Mr. Parsons's wares. For a minute I thought the woman was making a bawdy joke, though not a very funny one. But Belinda went on to tell us she'd bought a pattern and a pair of scissors. She turned to smile brightly at me, as if she expected me to get excited about her purchases. I gave her a flat stare. She looked away right smart. But before long Miss Trotter was back in the conversation again, asking about our plans. She tried to find out when we were leaving Mil Flores. Neither Paulina nor Eli gave her a definite answer, and I had to admire the way they dodged the woman. The two grigoris were so smart in some ways, so scary. But they were so dumb in others. So far I'd done well by them, though I was on my own personal mission. It would take only one big mistake, like Manda blurting out my most notorious act, for the grigoris to find out more about me than I wanted them to know. I was walking a tightrope with my employers. I would never forget Eli making the blood leave the man's body this morning. I'd never forget Paulina's interrogation. After one of the longest hours I'd ever spent in my life, Eli and Paulina decided we'd turn in. As I'd expected, they didn't give me a hint of what they'd decided to do the next day, or what they wanted done with Marcial Montes's body. Paulina didn't tell me anything even when we were alone in our room, and I was irritated enough to not ask a single question. Usually, when my head hits the pillow, I'm out, but this night I stayed awake a little while, thinking about Lobo Gris and the vulture nagual. I made myself relax and breathe evenly. That usually worked, the few nights I didn't drift off quick. My roommate must have believed I was deep asleep. She got up and left our room, quiet as a shadow. I heard the back door of the whorehouse open and a voice bid her welcome three minutes later. Sounded like Andy's. He was right,I thought. And somehow the fact that Andy had found it easy to read Paulina made it easy for me to sleep. I didn't hear Paulina slip back into our room, but she was there in the morning when I got up and washed. She didn't move as I dressed and left the room. I hoped she needed her rest, that her night of pleasure had softened her a little. Or something. Made her happy for a few seconds. I was surprised to find I was very hungry, and to my pleasure I could smell that breakfast was ready. Jim had just served Mr. Parsons and Miss Trotter, who were sitting together. They invited me to join them, but I said, "You'd be sorry. I'm not a morning person," and set myself at a table on my own. That was a flat-out lie; I was a morning person, for sure. But I'd listened to them talk enough the evening before to last me for a good long while. I ate some eggs and some bacon and some pancakes. I didn't know Jim Comstock's true purpose, or what he was doing in Mil Flores, but he was a truly great cook. Right up there with my mom. Paulina and Eli came down together a few minutes later. Sure enough, Paulina looked very relaxed. They sat with me, and Jim hustled in with some plates for them, and some coffee. They were quiet. I got to enjoy that for too short a while. "What will happen to the body?" Paulina asked out of the blue. "Good morning to you, too," I said. She ignored that. "I begged an old sheet off our host and covered Montes last night." So Montes's body was still lying in the backyard on Miss Trotter's wagon. Interesting that Miss Trotter hadn't insisted on his removal. "I doubt Mil Flores pays a gravedigger," I said. "And no one does that for free. I reckon they'll throw him out in the desert." The two grigoris stared at me. I wouldn't say they were horrified. It would take a lot to horrify these two. But they were for sure taken aback. "What?" I said. "The dead from the ambush are out there. You never asked about burying them." I'd made a point, I thought, even though I'd had to do it in a whisper. "In fact, since the body on the wagon is there because of us, we should do the disposing of it, I figure." I could see both of them, especially Eli, struggle to come up with some kind of sensible reply that would end up in Montes's being magically buried by someone else. But in the end neither could find anything to say. "Hold on a minute," I said, and swung my legs free from the bench. I went to the door at the back of the passage and opened it to look out. Andy was getting water from a pump behind the whorehouse, and we waved at each other. I returned to the dining room. "He's gone," I said. "What?" Paulina didn't keep her voice down. "He's gone. They came and got him in the night." "Lobo Gris?" So she had been listening. "Yeah, I reckon it was them. I don't guess he got up and walked away on his own." "That means . . ." Eli stopped while he thought. "That means someone here told them one of their members was here, dead." I nodded, ate some more pancake. "Yep." "Could have been anyone in the crowd," Paulina murmured. "Someone else who belongs." "Could have been whoever hired him," Eli said. "That, too. You talked to the mechanic last night?" We were all keeping our voices very low, but it was time to change the subject. We couldn't know who had tipped off the crew that Montes was dead, and might not even want to know, I suspected, at least right now. "How is the car?" Eli said, "Mechanic says that only a cap was loosened, and he replaced the oil and tightened it. He was going to come over this morning and take a slower look to be sure. I'm going to talk to him as soon as I finish eating." I nodded. A good precaution. Eli added, "With the car parked in front, it seems unbelievable that no one noticed the man fiddling under the car." "It all ties in," Paulina whispered. "The car out front, any number of people could have seen whoever was trying to sabotage it." I didn't really believe everyone in Mil Flores was willing to ignore such a strange thing because they were all in a criminal crew. That was possible, but not probable. "Most likely some people did notice, but it wasn't any of their business. Why would they be on your side?" I said with some reason, considering Paulina and Eli were openly grigoris. Even I didn't necessarily think grigoris were good guys, but they were not criminals. Maybe. And they were the ones who were paying me. As scary as Paulina and Eli were, and lethal as they were, I had to stick with them until we found the remaining Karkarov brother in Juárez. That ended our conversation. After I'd gone up to brush my teeth, I went out to the car, since Paulina and Eli were lingering over their coffee. The hood of the Celebrity Tourer was up. The dark man from the evening before was scrambling out from under the car. When he'd gotten to his feet, he lowered the Tourer's hood. "Good morning. I hope you got some good news?" I said. "Yeah, I'm Desmond. Morning, gunnie. And yes, I got good news." "I'm ready for it." And that was God's truth. "I just had to put in some more oil and screw the cap back on the pan. Might have been a little problem if the asshole had made off with the cap, but it was lying on the ground under the car. Couldn't be bothered, I guess. And the engine looks fine to me. No interference there." "That simple. Great. How much do we owe you?" "Couple of dollars will do me." I handed it over, plus a little more. "We'll probably come by to fill up as we're leaving." "If I'm not there, my wife can pump the gas. Or either of the kids." Desmond was a man who stuck to business. I wished more people were like him. While I was outside, I strolled between the whorehouse and the hotel. I noticed the fresh footprints in the dirt. Four men had walked here the night before. They'd gone in light and come out heavy. Carrying the body. Eli came out onto the porch a minute later. "What did he say?" "Car's ready to go. He's got gas if we need it. I think we should fill up." "Then we might as well start." "Okay." I went upstairs to fetch my bags. I would not be sorry to leave Mil Flores. I did not feel I could let my guard down here, not for a second. I had a gloomy feeling that the tension might not get any better when we left. It wasn't only the town that made me jumpy, it was my employers. If I could have been back in Segundo Mexia just by wishing, I would have been home. At the same time, I thought more and more about the chance that I had a half sister. I didn't know if I wanted one or not. I wondered how it would feel if I did.