Nick frowned as he looked at the screen and began scrolling through the story. Rodrigo stood up, let him read for a couple of minutes, then spoke.
“Girl dead, found beyond nightclub alley. Throat torn out,” Rodrigo said.
“Who cares?” Nick spat back.
“Vampire bites! The cops will be searching for you.”
Nick rose, his movements those of a spider, a tad jerky from the exposure to sunlight. A tad uncertain. But his voice was assertive. “They won’t find me.”
“Oh, because you cover your tracks so well? Might as well have carved your name onto the bitch’s chest.”
Rodrigo snatched the phone back and stuffed it in his suit jacket’s pocket. Nick didn’t look the least bit guilty about his actions. Not that he expected anything else from such a pampered bloodsucker.
“Do you want to go back home in pieces?” Rodrigo asked.
“We could be back home now if you knew what you were doing,” the boy said dismissively.
Rodrigo glanced at his shoes. They’d been polished recently and he could practically see his own reflection, though the image was distorted, distended, just like he felt in that instant.
“I know what I’m doing. It’s trying not to attract attention. Trying to catch a vampire with no one else knowing and without the authorities figuring out I’m with another damn vampire,” he said, looking back up at the kid.
“Mexico City is like any other city. The authorities can be bought,” Nick replied.
“Sometimes. And sometimes, when the vampire is the son of a narco like your dad, the authorities just want to fry you in hot oil. We are behind enemy lines, idiot.”
“Don’t you call me that,” the boy said.
He noticed that Nick’s fangs were showing and that his pupils were dilating. He was ready to attack. Rodrigo had his gun and more than twenty years of experience with bloodsuckers, but vampire bites still hurt.
“If you’re thinking of biting me, you better make sure I’m good and dead. Otherwise you are going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“You’re an old man, Rodrigo. I don’t think there’s much you could do if I took a chunk out of you.”
“Let’s see you try,” he said. It was best to push against the brat. Vampires delighted in weakness, sniffing out the lame lamb.
Nick growled, but Rodrigo could see that his impulse to attack was evaporating. The kid was stupid but not that stupid. Rodrigo hadn’t spent so many years in the employment of a vampire by being gentle. Goons working for vampires are not sweet and loving. Mind you, Rodrigo didn’t like getting his hands dirty, never had, but when push came to shove he wasn’t above cutting an asshole’s head with a machete.
The kid knew this, and if he’d forgotten he was suddenly reminded of it.
“Fuck you,” Nick muttered. The boy sat down on his bed and began rummaging by it, probably looking for candy. “What have you done so far, anyway? You don’t know where she is.”
“I don’t have Atl’s coordinates yet.” Rodrigo stressed this last word, feeling the point needed to be underlined. “She’s sneaky. But I do have a team of people assembled. They’ll be able to bring her in once we find her.”
“I still say we don’t need no stupid team. We should be able to nab a girl.”
“We made that mistake before, didn’t we?”
He smiled, recalling the look on Nick’s face when the “girl” landed a good kick on him. Nick was young and he healed fast, but there was no denying Atl had inflicted a nice amount of damage on this cocky boy. Atl was not as strong as Nick, but what she lacked in brute force she seemed to make up for in agility.
Rodrigo pushed away a bottle of soda with the tip of his shoe and walked around the bed, toward the door. “No matter. We should be able to catch her and kill her quickly enough, if you don’t fuck it up by eating random girls.”
“Whatever,” Nick said, stuffing a chocolate bar in his mouth.
Rodrigo took out a cigarette and lit it, feeling the weight of it upon his fingers. He smoked and did not say anything for a couple of minutes, letting his silence settle upon the room. Nick looked at him, waiting. Rodrigo removed the cigarette from his mouth. A red-hot poker is always cooler than a white-hot poker. When Rodrigo spoke he did not allow the rough anger that had invaded him minutes before to color his voice, instead branding each sentence with a white-hot anger that burned even deeper.
“Your father thinks you are ready for this. I disagree. Nevertheless, he’s entrusted you to a task. But he’s also entrusted you to me. From now on, I will have total obedience or you will find yourself with more than a sun-rash around your mouth. Go back to sleep.”
Nick stared at him and bowed his head, a snake momentarily tamed.
Rodrigo slammed the door shut and stood there, savoring his cigarette for a good, long minute.
CHAPTER
12
When Domingo returned she had not woken up yet. Her dog was sitting in front of the closet. It raised its head and growled at him.