Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss (10 page)

BREWER

“There’s your answer,” Xochi said.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Brewer’s in Yuma. We’d better hit the road.”

Xochi stood, sheathing the knife.

“Before we leave,” Xochi said. “May I wash myself?”

“Uh yeah,” Dean said. “No problem. Be my guest.”

“You’d better wash yourself too,” Sam said to Dean. “I’m not gonna sit in a car for four hours with a guy who smells like a dirty bar rag.”

“Ladies first,” Dean said, gesturing toward the closed bathroom door.

“Thank you,” she said. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “But Dean, I have one question. What is Q?”

“Look,” Dean said, suppressing a snicker. “You can’t be in the Monster Club if you haven’t seen
Q, The Winged Serpent
.”

“It’s a movie,” Sam said. “And you’re probably better off not having seen it.”

“Winged serpent?” She frowned. “They made a movie about
Quetzalcoatl
?”

“They made a movie about a cheesy rubber puppet flying around New York City and eating people,” Sam told her.

“Aw, come on,” Dean said. “I love that movie.”

“Dude,” Sam said. “We watched that movie when I was, like, five years old, and even back then I wasn’t buying that monster for a minute.”

“You help me win this fight,” Xochi said with a wink. “I’ll introduce you to the real thing. Then can I be in the Monster Club?”

“If we win this,” Sam said. “You’re in. Lifetime membership.”

Xochi smiled and disappeared into the bathroom.

The three of them stood outside a greasy spoon diner. It was long and narrow, a fifties aluminum building that had been given an ugly brown-and-orange makeover sometime in the mid seventies. There was a Denny’s on the other side of the highway, and so the little diner was nearly empty. The faded and peeling sign above the door read “ROADRUNNER GRILL” and featured a slightly altered knock-off of the famous cartoon character who was always making a fool out of the coyote. Dean found that strangely appropriate.

It was only 9 a.m. but rapidly becoming unbearably hot. Xochi had traded her black wifebeater tank top for a white one, making her lack of a bra even more evident. Her long hair was loose and fragrant, still damp from the shower. She wore the same beat-up, Mad Max leather pants. And her gun-belt.

“You know, I’m as paranoid as the next hunter,” Dean said, gesturing at the pistols. “But are you sure it’s a good idea to wear those to breakfast? I really don’t think anybody’s gonna try to shoot you in a diner.”

“I have a carry permit,” Xochi said. “Your country is very gun-friendly.”

“But you aren’t even a U.S. citizen,” Sam said. “Are you?”

“No,” Xochi said. “In fact, this is my first time visiting the United States. But I have a U.S. driver’s license. And a birth certificate that says I was born in Los Angeles. A lot of people owe me favors.”

“Come on, kids,” Sam said, pushing the diner door open and motioning for Xochi to enter.

The single waitress, a tiny, birdlike woman in her mid-fifties with a big, bright red, utterly unironic eighties poodle perm, motioned for them to seat themselves. She eyed Xochi’s guns but was smart enough not to say anything. Sam and Dean took opposite sides of the orange Naugahyde booth closest to the door. Xochi chose to sit beside Sam. Dean had no idea why that bothered him so much, and tried to concentrate on the menu instead. A big greasy breakfast was just the ticket to get on top of his lingering hangover.

“So how was your powwow with the coyote guy last night?” Sam asked Xochi. “Anything useful?”

“Huehuecoyotl is a trickster,” Xochi said, looking down at the menu. “It is hard to see through his lies. He told me I had to go back to Mexico City to find the Borderwalker, but the divination proves that she is going after Brewer in Yuma next.” She closed the menu and slid it over to the edge of the table. “He did say one thing that I think may be significant. He seemed to be hinting that a larger force is behind the actions of the Borderwalker. If that is the case, we may have a much more difficult fight on our hands.”

The waitress came over to fill their coffee cups and take their orders. Xochi asked for a bacon cheeseburger with extra bacon.

“And chili cheese fries,” she looked to Sam. “We can share, okay?”

“Chili cheese fries, for breakfast?” Sam shook his head. “Dean, you may have finally met your perfect woman.”

“Chili cheese fries sound fantastic,” Dean said. “Just what the doctor ordered. And I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger too.”

“You can’t fight the forces of darkness with a stomach full of salad,” Xochi said.

“Amen, sister,” Dean said, raising his coffee cup.

Sam rolled his eyes. “You can’t fight anything if you’re dead from a heart attack.”

“You really think people like us live long enough to die from a heart attack?” Xochi asked.

There was a beat of awkward silence at the table.

“Okay, and what can I get you, honey,” the waitress asked Sam, with a desperately forced smile.

Xochi followed the Impala on her bike. Dean watched her in the rearview, wondering what the hell he’d been thinking, agreeing to let her tag along. Wondering what it would be like with her.

“Turn here,” Sam said. “Here!”

Dean swung the Impala into a squealing, last-minute swerve to hit the turnoff Sam had indicated. Xochi followed smoothly behind them.

Gilberto Brewer was a vet, a marine with a couple tours in the Middle East before he came home and joined the CBP, and so Sam had been able to pull all kinds of info about him through Veteran Services. Never married. No living family. History of drug addiction and homelessness over the past fifteen years, on and off a county-run methadone program. Mostly off. Currently living in a crap apartment on the outskirts of Yuma.

It took them a few trips around the block to find the place, and then only by inferring the address based on the numbers on the adjacent buildings. It was as if people who lived there didn’t want to be found. Once Dean got a good look at the place, he decided he couldn’t blame them.

It was a dump, cheaply built in the eighties and already falling apart. Scabby stucco. Barred windows. There were only six units, all in a row like a cheap motel. Letters instead of numbers. Brewer was in the last one. End of the line, apartment F. That was about right.

Xochi pulled into the parking lot behind them. She removed her helmet and started twining her hair up into a big figure eight on the top of her head, fastening it with long pins and marigolds just like she said she would. The resulting crown of flowers looked weirdly incongruous with the rest of her scrappy un-feminine outfit.

“Here,” she said, pulling handfuls of thick silver chains out of her backpack. “Put these on. If you won’t wear marigolds, at least these may give you some protection around your face and neck.”

Dean slipped the tangled chains over his head.

“I feel like the second-place Mr. T,” he said.

“Just tuck ’em under your shirt,” Sam said, putting on his own chains and slipping them under his collar.

“Bring the weapons I gave you,” Xochi said. “Be ready.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I think this guy’s gonna freak out if we walk in there holding spiked baseball bats.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said.

“What about you?” Dean asked Xochi. “What are you planning to use to fight the Borderwalker? Harsh language?”

“Exactly,” she said, turning away and heading for the door to Brewer’s apartment.

“Well isn’t she a take-charge kinda girl?” Dean muttered, annoyed by how easily they’d both fallen into following her lead.

“She can take charge of me any day,” Sam replied, hefting the rifle bag and slinging it over one shoulder.

When the two of them got to the door, Xochi was already banging on it with her gloved fist.

“So,” Dean said. “Is there a plan... or...”

The door opened a crack, revealing a chain lock and a slice of pale, unshaven face. A single suspicious bloodshot eye looked them over.

“What do you want?”

Xochi kicked the door open, breaking the chain off its track.

Dean and Sam exchanged glances, then shrugged and followed her into the apartment.

It was dim and cavelike inside, with a smell like old socks and moldy carpet. It was pretty much all one claustrophobic room with a minimal kitchen off one side and bathroom off the other. The walls were a dingy, unpleasant peach, like the skin of a discarded doll. The furniture was a sorry cluster of mismatched thrift store refugees. No television. No computer. No stereo. No books. No visible source of entertainment of any kind, unless you counted the dope paraphernalia on the scarred coffee table.

Brewer was Latino, mid-forties, and balding, with pale, jaundiced skin and the sad, deflated build of a former bodybuilder gone to seed. He was dressed in a thin T-shirt that hadn’t been white in years and cheap, shiny track pants. There was an ugly purple abscess in the crook of his left arm.

In moments, Xochi had Brewer backed up against the wall, a fistful of his stained T-shirt in one hand and a pistol in the other. She jammed the business end of the gun up under Brewer’s chin and whispered to him in Spanish.

Dean stepped up beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, flashing Brewer a friendly reassuring smile.

“You’ll have to forgive my partner, Mr. Brewer,” Dean said, badging him with an FBI ID. “She’s very... enthusiastic.”

Xochi backed off with the gun and let go of Brewer’s shirt, but stayed up in his face, letting him know that she might change her mind at any moment. Playing unhinged bad-cop counterpoint to Dean’s calm, trustworthy good cop like they’d been doing it their whole lives, Sam stood like a silent wall behind them, arms crossed and using his size to intimidate and block access to the door. Maybe not exactly the way Dean would have played it, but it looked like they had this.

“I’m Special Agent Scott. My partners Young...” Chin tip to Sam. “And Quintanilla.” To Xochi. “We need to talk to you.”

Brewer’s eyes flicked to the syringe on the table, then back to Dean.

“Not about that,” Dean said. “About an incident that occurred on the night of April 18th 1995.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man croaked. But Brewer’s expression told a different story. It said that he knew
exactly
what they were talking about.

“Look, Brewer,” Dean said. “We can do this the hard way, if you prefer.”

“Mr. Brewer,” Xochi interrupted. “Excuse me, Mr. Brewer.”

Dean shot her a questioning glance but she ignored him.

“What?” Brewer wiped his dry lips with a nervous, shaking hand.

“Do you have someone else living here with you?” Xochi asked.

Brewer frowned, gave a terse shake of his head.

Xochi stepped back, gestured with her gun.

“Then who is that?”

Dean followed her gaze through the doorway to the grungy bathroom. There was someone sitting on the edge of the bathtub, facing away from them. Silent, unmoving. Someone with curly black hair.

For a moment, nothing happened. The four of them stood frozen, just watching and waiting. Xochi felt the familiar adrenaline rush coursing through her limbs as she let her breath out slow and relaxed her muscles, preparing her body for action. Then Dean leaned close and spoke low out of the corner of his mouth.

“That her?” Dean asked.

“I think so, yes,” Xochi replied.

Sam reached into the unzipped rifle bag and pulled out one of the obsidian-studded
maquahuitl
, moving slow and never taking his eyes off the woman in the bathroom.

Then the woman’s head whipped around and she screamed, face splitting open into a bloody, gaping hole ringed with canine teeth. Blowtorch rage blasted Xochi with a power that was nearly physical in its intensity, but she stepped forward rather than back, shoving Brewer behind her and raising her right hand.

The Borderwalker stood. Sam tossed the
maquahuitl
to Dean and then pulled the other from the rifle bag. The brothers flanked her, Dean on her right and Sam on her left. Brewer cowered behind them.