Domingo scrambled toward Quinto and pulled the keys out of his pocket. Quinto was moaning in pain, but Domingo had no time to help him. He hurried down the hallway, looking at each of the meshed doors. Cualli was way down the hallway, and when he came back with the dog, he found that Atl had Belén pinned against a wall, her mouth pressed against the girl’s neck. Belén gave him a panicked look.
“I told you not to hurt her!” he cried.
Domingo pulled Atl back. She looked at him with her other face, her bird’s face, her eyes narrowed into two angry slits.
“Atl, let her go,” he said.
She hissed at him and continued feeding. Belén was weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Domingo swallowed. He bent down and grabbed the gun one of the men had dropped. His hands trembled. He had no idea how to use the weapon and he didn’t want to do this but he knew he had to. Atl just wasn’t herself right that instant.
“Let her go,” he said. “You’re going to kill her.”
“Don’t interfere.”
He pressed the gun against her back. “Atl, stop. I mean it.”
Atl spun around and clutched his face with one hand, tilting it a little and tilting her own head in turn, staring at him. Her eyes were dark and hard as obsidian.
“You mean it? Have you ever pulled a trigger, hmm?”
“Atl,” he muttered. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“This won’t kill her.”
“Fine. Let her go now,” he said, and somehow he managed to speak calmly.
She seemed to respond to his tone, her hand sliding down his face and pulling away.
“Very well,” Atl said, and she shoved the girl aside like she was a wet rag, then walked into the cell where Quinto lay whimpering.
Domingo caught Belén in his arms and held her as she sobbed. For a moment he thought Atl was going to kill Quinto, but all she did was grab her jacket from the place where it lay on the mattress and put it on with the greatest care, as if it weren’t stained and filthy. Then she walked out, pulled her knife from the corpse where it was lodged, and hid it between the folds of her jacket. When she raised her head to look at Domingo her face had shifted and seemed human again.
“You should run now, girl,” Atl said.
Belén disentangled herself from Domingo’s arms and, obeying Atl, rushed down the hallway, away from them. She knew the building, and Domingo was confident she’d find her way out safely. Or she’d hide until it was safe enough to exit.
“Do you want to follow her?” Atl asked him, her voice a challenge.
No, he thought, and another part of him cried a definitive Yes, I want out of this. And he kind of wondered why he was doing this, why he was sticking to her. The answer was not a coherent thought, merely the thump of his heartbeat.
He shook his head and offered her the gun he was holding. She snatched it from his hands.
“You know a way out?”
“There’s a loading area,” Domingo said. “We can get out from there.”
Atl raised her head, as though she were listening for something. “They’re here. We need to go.”
CHAPTER
25
Rodrigo said he had a team of people ready, but in Nick’s opinion the seven goons that comprised the team looked pretty damn shitty. Nick didn’t know what sewer the new recruits had crawled out of, but they certainly didn’t seem very skilled. Hell, none of them had even met a vampire before. They were Mexico City lads, cocooned in their shit city for far too long. Nick looked at their weapons, scattered over the living room, and smirked.
Regular guns. As if that could kill one of his kind. Nick grabbed a rifle that had been left on a large dining room table and held it up, pointing at one of Rodrigo’s paintings. He quickly turned his attention toward the knives, which were more interesting, and the stun batons. Now that was real vampire-hunting gear.
“I told you not to touch anything,” La Bola said.
“I am not breaking it.”
“You have to stay in your room.”
Nick rolled his eyes and snorted. La Bola was pathetic, stammering whatever words were put in his mouth. This was what his bodyguard amounted to: a fidgeting moron. Nick wished Justiniano had not died in Guadalajara. He’d been a smart cookie. The girl’s stupid dog killed him. When they found Atl, he was going to skin the dog before her very eyes.
“Look, Bola, either I get out of this apartment or you get out in a body bag.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Rodrigo said from behind him.
Nick turned around and stared at the old man, scowling.
“If you want to go out, we are making a business trip and could use your company. I might have found our lady friend.”
“You found Atl?” Nick said.
“Maybe. I imagine you want to come along for the ride? Unless you’d like to stay here and watch a few cartoons. The team is ready to go.”
Nick gave Rodrigo the finger, but followed him down to the car anyway. Bola and the shitty team were just behind them.
“When were you thinking of briefing me?” Nick asked once they were inside the car. No one ever told him anything.
“I got the news only a little while ago. I’ve been sharing Atl’s photo and description with every lowlife in Mexico City I’ve ever had dealings with, and apparently we hit the jackpot.”
Rodrigo handed Nick his phone and Nick looked at the picture on the screen. It wasn’t a terribly good image, but it looked like Atl, her eyes closed.