A Snake in the Grass (14 page)

“What is this place?” Sveta fixed me with
that icy blue gaze of hers, and I could only shake my head.

“Guess we’re gonna find out. The kid’s in
there somewhere. Try not to shoot anyone.”

There were doors on the backside of the
warehouse, every single one of them padlocked shut. Inside, we
could hear raised voices, shouting, chanting, cheering. Sounded
like a helluva party, so it was pretty much guaranteed that they
weren’t going to hear us when Sveta grabbed a piece of broken
concrete and smashed the lock off the nearest door. We waited for a
moment to see if there was any break in the din, but it continued
on without pause, and we slipped inside.

The interior of the warehouse was mostly
dark, at least where we were, and lined with crates and pallets of
dry goods as far as we could see. Bags of rice, beans, cases of
canned vegetables, grocery stuff. Not exactly what I’d expected,
given the firepower at the front door. Sveta, pistol in hand but
pointed at the floor, gave me a raised brow, and I just shrugged in
return. I had no idea.

The noise, and what few lights were lit, were
off to our left, and we maneuvered through the tight stacks in
order to get closer. One of the very few times I was grateful for
being as skinny as I was. A bigger man wouldn’t have fit through
some of the close quarters.

Sveta, taking point, held up a closed fist as
the narrow alley gave way to flickering fluorescent lighting and
the view of many backs facing our direction, the crowd surging and
chanting in Spanish. The voices rang off the metal roof high above
us, doubling and quadrupling the output until my ears wanted to
ring with it.

There had to be a hundred people there, at
least. Mostly men, from what I could see, but there were a few
women sprinkled throughout, waving their fists in the air and
screaming just as loudly. A few of them stood out to my senses,
glimmering with faint magical talent, and I mentally pegged them as
Perez relatives, though probably distant. Not one person turned
around, though, and no one noticed when Sveta and I slipped into
the very rear of the crowd, trying to spot what had them all so
transfixed.

They’d formed what was probably a loose
circle to start, but had pressed closer and tighter as their fervor
rose. It was hard to see past the sheer wall of shoulders that
blocked our way, or find a line of sight through the churning,
screaming throng. Somewhere under the noise, though, at a different
pitch than the rest of the voices, I started to hear grunts and
groans, and the unmistakable sound of fists on flesh. A
particularly loud hit reached my ears, and the crowd responded with
a roar that nearly deafened me. The men directly in front of us
slapped each other on the backs, a few exchanged money, and one
voice rose above the others, quieting the cacophony.

I didn’t understand all the words in all the
shouting, but I recognized the voice, pitched to carry to every
person in the warehouse. “Paulito,” I mouthed to Sveta, and she
nodded her agreement. Whatever the Perez cousin was doing, he
sounded like a sports announcer, his words big and broad. Putting
on a show.

Now that I knew for sure he was here, I
started searching the crowd for Estéban, trying to locate the tall,
slender kid in all the mess. Like hunting a needle in a haystack.
Nearly every person there was dark-haired, dressed in T-shirts and
jeans, and identifying the kid from just the back of his head was
proving to be a futile effort.

The people in front of us shifted, suddenly,
the crowd loosening up as whatever event they’d been watching came
to an end, and I got a clear look into the center of the circle.
Paulito was there, sure enough, his arm around the shoulders of
another young man that looked like he’d just gone ten rounds with a
bulldozer. Blood ran freely down the strange guy’s face, and his
eyes were so swollen I knew he wouldn’t even be able to find his
own feet, let alone walk with any certainty. On Paulito’s other
side was another man in similar condition, bent over and panting as
blood and spit poured from the massive gashes in his lips.

Neither of them was Estéban, I was relieved
to note, and Sveta and I edged closer as Paulito congratulated what
appeared to be the winner and handed him a small stack of money.
Both men staggered away to be swallowed by the crowd, and then
Paulito raised his voice again, obviously calling for the next
participants.

Two men stepped from the crowd, stripping off
their shirts as they came, and I finally realized what was going
on. “Shit. It’s Fight Club.”

“It’s what?” Sveta’s eyes never left the
crowd around us, but if anyone noticed the two critically Caucasian
people in their midst, they let it slide.

“First rule of Fight Club, you don’t talk
about Fight Club.” I smirked, watching as the two new combatants
squared off facing each other. Neither of them was Estéban either,
so I was content to just see how this played out.

That fight was over in seconds. The
bloodthirsty crowd never even had time to work themselves into full
voice. The bigger of the two men tried a jab, and the little one
feinted and came in low, throwing the sweetest uppercut I think
I’ve ever seen. Big dude toppled over like he’d been poleaxed, his
head bouncing when it met the cement floor. The unexpected triumph
was met with an equal number of cheers and boos, the underdog no
doubt costing quite a few people some money.

“This is stupid,” Sveta muttered close to my
ear. “If Estéban wishes to get his brains bashed in, that is his
prerogative. We should go, you should not be here.”

I was actually kind of inclined to agree with
her. If this was what the kid wanted to do with his free time, more
power to him. Hell, I even kinda wanted to see him fight, just to
see what would happen. But Rosaline’s worried face lurked at the
back of my mind, and I couldn’t go back to the house without at
least trying. “See if you can find him, get his attention
subtly.”

I couldn’t hear her growl in all the noise,
but the look she gave me was enough. She was done with this
foolishness, and was about ten seconds from dragging me out by my
ponytail.

Paulito, obviously taking the role of emcee
to this lunacy, called out again, and the crowd fell nearly silent,
stilling to the point that Sveta and I didn’t dare move or someone
was surely going to notice. There was a palpable tension in the air
suddenly, a hungry anticipation. They knew what was coming, it was
what they’d all been waiting for.

It was clear, whatever he was introducing,
this was going to be the big finale. He did a lot of talking, a lot
of sweeping gestures, and with one sweep of his arm, the crowd on
the far side parted willingly to reveal a bigger section of the
floor, this one marked with dark lines and squiggles that I
couldn’t quite read from my vantage point. From a distance, it
looked like some little kid had gone nuts with finger paints on the
warehouse floor.

“
Y
ahora
!
El
demonio
!”

A chill ran down my spine,
and the souls in my skin fluttered along my muscles in unease. Had
he really said what I thought he’d said? I mean, my Spanish a work
in progress, but demon sounded a lot alike in many different
languages.
It’s a name, a fighter’s
nickname, surely. He can’t really mean…

“_______________!”

Yup…yup, he really did.

The demon name rang out into the stillness,
echoing for way longer than can be explained by bad acoustics, and
several things happened simultaneously. The guy directly to my
right doubled over, barfing all over his shoes (he wasn’t the only
one, by the sounds of it), Sveta took in a sharp breath, and the
souls in my skin tried their damnedest to crawl out of me by taking
the front of me through the back.

I hit my knees, swallowing a scream of pain,
my vision blacking out completely. I could feel the swoops and
whorls of the iridescent tattoos turning into a writhing, agitated
mess, every single occupant sending the same clarion alarm call
through my tortured muscles. Iron bands wrapped around my chest,
refusing to allow air into my lungs, and for just a second I
thought I was actually having a heart attack. I was faintly
disappointed that something so lame could do me in, and then I
realized that it wasn’t cardiac arrest, it was a panic attack and
it wasn’t mine. Two hundred and seventy-five souls were having
simultaneous meltdowns. The message was very clear, Do Not
Want!

After a while, I realized that Sveta’s voice
was low in my ear, urging me to get up, to retreat with her to the
safety of the stacks. “Come. On your feet. We must go now.” I
blinked the blackness away from my eyes, forcing my way up through
sheer stubbornness. Sveta slipped her free arm around my waist, and
I fully admit I was leaning on her more than not.

No one noticed the spectacle we were
creating, everyone else also caught up in their bodies’ very
natural reactions to the abomination that was demon speech. At
least two had fainted, that I could see, and several others will
still revisiting their lunches. It took a strong stomach to dabble
in the demon tongue on a regular basis, and it didn’t escape my
attention that Paulito was way too comfortable with it. Hell, the
one time I’d spoken a demon name aloud, I’d ralphed up my sneakers.
But he stood calmly in the cleared circle, a small smile on his
face as a roll of black fog started oozing out of nowhere.

It seeped between people’s
feet, coiling sinuously through the crowd like a living creature.
Twining, twisting, it all ran into the circle of painted symbols,
assembling into a rolling, bubbling ball of black smoke.
Blight
. I don’t know
what it really was, but on the real world side of the divide, it
was everything that made up a demon. Blood, bone, flesh, all of it
was formed from blight, and as the insidious substance poured into
the circle, the ball got bigger and slowly started to take shape,
creating itself a body.

I ignored Sveta’s urgent tugging at me, sick
dread freezing me to my spot. I had to see. I had to know what it
was.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the scariest demon I’d
ever seen. The roil of blight spun faster and faster until it
resolved itself into something no taller than my knee,
pale-skinned, all scrawny arms and bony legs. Its ears looked like
batwings, larger than the head itself, and the eyes were big enough
to take up most of its face. It looked kinda like that thing that
sat next to Jabba the Hutt, but before I could find amusement in
that, it smiled. The mouth was full of shark’s teeth, jagged and
black, and each finger and toe was tipped with a viciously curved
claw. Tiny did not mean harmless. Right. Got it.

The luminescent eyes fixed
on Paulito, flashing a violent red, and the thing hissed, charging
at the young man. I tensed, ready to…do what? I couldn’t even stand
up on my own, and I was totally unarmed. The woman beside me,
however, was not, and Sveta leveled her gun at the thing, already
squeezing the trigger at the moment that the demon bounced off an
invisible barrier not a foot from Paulito, and sprawled on its bony
little ass. Quickly, Sveta lowered her weapon, tightening her grip
on me. “Come
on
!”

The audience seemed to be recovering, finding
their voices at once as they hooted and jeered at the angry little
demon. That only pissed it off more, and it shrieked its fury at a
pitch that had everyone wincing in discomfort. It pounded its fists
on the invisible wall that held it trapped, and when that was
unsuccessful, it raked its claws across the barrier over and over
again. Blight rolled off the tips of its nails, scoured away by
whatever was holding the demon in place.

Paulito laughed, almost
fondly, crouching down to look the demon right in the eyes.
“
Sabes que no puedes
escapar
.”
You
know you can’t escape
, my mind translated.
The thing only hissed in response, growling something in its own
language that was definitely not an endearment.
“
Estás listo para intentar ganar tu
libertad
?”
Are
you ready to try to win your freedom?

“Yesssss…. Free me….” I thought for a moment
that the thing was speaking English, which just seemed stupid given
the circumstances, but after a moment I realized that whatever it
was speaking it was something we could all understand. Made sense.
What demon wanted to waste its time doing mail order language
classes?

The souls shuddered under
my skin at the sound of the demon’s voice, and I swallowed away the
oil slick taste that it left at the back of my throat.
Look, you guys have to calm down. I can’t walk
out of here if you’ve got me all tied up in knots like this.
Almost instantly, the pain ceased, my
‘companions’ stilling abruptly. Leaving was obviously high on their
list of things they wanted to do right fucking now.

The crowd was pressing closer now, crowding
the magical circle in fevered anticipation, pulling Sveta and I
along with it like the tide. Her hand was like a vice on my arm,
firmly intent on dragging me the opposite direction.

“We have to get the kid,” I insisted. “I
don’t know what’s about to happen, but we can’t leave him here with
that thing.”

Whatever she said, I’m pretty sure it would
have gotten my mouth washed out with soap, but she finally
relented, releasing her hold on me. “I have not seen him yet. We
must circle around to the other side.”

“
Y
el retador
!”

“Wait,” I hissed at Sveta. It was suddenly
important to see who else was going to step into that ring. My
danger sense may not be functioning as intended, but you just kinda
know when something really bad is about to go down.