Solares did as I asked. Alvarez relaxed a tad. Righted a chair, dropped heavily into it, and downed two huge gulps of tequila before burying his face in his hands and crying like a child. I gestured with Mendoza’s gun and Solares took a seat as well. Castillo, still unconscious, moaned and twitched as if his dreams were far from pleasant. Can’t say I was surprised. Can’t say I cared much, either.
“What are you?” asked Solares.
“That’s complicated,” I replied. “And I’ve neither the time nor inclination to explain it to you. What’s important is you, and they, have gotten a taste of what I can do.”
Solares smiled humorlessly. “I suppose we have, at that. What now?”
“I assume you heard what I came here to do.”
He nodded. “You came here to kill the beast below.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
“I would not expect it had,” he said. “And how, precisely, do I fit into this plan?”
I heaved a sigh. “Look, you’re a soldier. You know how this shit works. You must realize I can’t let you leave this place until the job is done. It wouldn’t do to have the Mexican Army showing up and making a hash of things.”
“I’ve no intention of leaving,” said Solares. “Those were my people this creature slaughtered. The very people I am sworn to protect. I would like to help you kill it if I can.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too risky.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, you were going to bring me along without my consent, were you not? And anyways, you’ve asked these men.”
“These men are drug runners. Human traffickers. Murderers. I’ve no problem risking their lives.”
“I’m a soldier. It’s no different.”
“It’s very fucking different. You’re an innocent. And if I’m not in your driver’s seat, I can’t protect you.”
Solares frowned then, and nodded, as if he’d just come to an unpleasant decision. Which, as it turns out, he had. “Then, as you say, drive,” he said.
Jesus. A willing vessel. As fucking awful as possession was for the possessed, I had to admire this dude’s stones.
“You sure?”
“If it helps you kill this beast, I’m sure.”
“All right then. It’s settled. But not just yet,” I said, patting at Mendoza’s pockets. “Because I could really use a fucking cigarette.”
7.
Truth be told, body-hopping back into Solares took a little longer than a cigarette.
First, I sent him out in search of supplies. Watched Castillo tend to Alvarez, his ministrations oddly sweet, while the latter slowly came around. Kept Mendoza’s gun beside me on the table the whole time, but they didn’t give me cause to use it. The fight had gone out of them. They were now victims, not aggressors, and my presence was to be weathered, not contested.
I smoked half Mendoza’s pack before Solares returned with a heavy padlock and a good eight feet of chain, the thickest he could manage. And he managed pretty thick; each clanking link was the size of a woman’s fist, the whole tangle heaped to overflowing in his ropy arms as he wrangled it through the door. He sounded like Marley’s ghost shuffling across the dusty floor while trying his damndest not to drop it. Every time the chain shifted and a portion hit the floor, he winced. I didn’t have to ask him why. Though realistically we all knew the creature could be hiding anywhere, not a one of us could shake the notion it was just below the floorboards, waiting.
Past the screen door, the night had reached full dark. This far out into the desert, there was no blue, just black; stars like chipped diamonds against the velvet of the sky. The air was cold and crisp and thin, the wild swing from the stultifying day enough to make my borrowed heartbeat quicken, lizard-brain instincts kicking in and telling me the atmosphere was thinner and more fragile a protection from the ice-sharp sting of space than by day I might’ve thought. To which I told my lizard-brain instincts chill the fuck out — you’ll be in a tidy little underground hidey-hole soon enough, the perfect burrow in which to weather the chill ache of desert night.
“So,” said Solares. “What now?”
“Now,” I told him, “we go hunting.”
I asked Alvarez if he was up to coming with us. Knew after what he’d been through, he’d be too scared of me to say no. He proved me right, nodding sweat-slick and wan, and eyeing me the whole time like if I didn’t find his answer enthusiastic enough, I might plunge my hand into his chest a second time. Instead, I handed him the remains of the tequila, which he killed in three quick glugs.
On my instructions, Solares gathered up as many guns as he could carry. I scooped up all but one of the rest with my left hand, taking the final one in my right and training it on Castillo and Alvarez. I told them to grab the lanterns and walkie-talkies that I’d found stashed behind the bar. And then it was time to head into the tunnels.
The entrance was behind a low cinderblock fireplace, which looked to be affixed to the far wall. It wasn’t. A switch flipped, a little elbow-grease from Castillo and Alvarez both, and the fireplace slid forward, some kind of runner system keeping it just off the floor so it wouldn’t scrape.
Behind it was a sad little smuggler’s notch, inside which was a rusted cash box and a couple pounds of low-grade ditch weed apportioned into eighths and quarters. I eyed the two of them like, are you kidding me? But the smuggler’s notch proved nothing more than a clever ruse, a rodeo clown to disguise the true reason for the sliding fireplace. Because Castillo dropped to one knee and looped a finger into a gaping knothole in the wooden floor, and next thing I knew, a three-by-three section of it hinged upward. A ladder descended from it into still, quiet darkness. Solares dropped in his pile of guns. I did the same. The clatter of their landing was swallowed almost immediately by the insulating earth. That done, Solares clanked down the ladder rungs. Once he reached the bottom, he called up to me, and then covered Castillo and Alvarez with one of their own weapons while they climbed down the ladder. Soon the tunnel entrance glowed like pirate treasure as they fired up their lamps.
I entered the tunnel last, yanking closed the hatch by the rusted iron loop bolted into its underside. Then I chained that loop to the ladder such that the hatch could not be opened, and set the lock. Below me, Alvarez said something in rapid-fire Spanish. I asked Solares what he was going on about.
“He says you do not need to do that. They are brave, and will not run.”
I shook my head. “He only says that cause right this sec, he’s more afraid of me than he is of what’s down here. I can’t take the chance that once I’m out of sight he’ll change his mind. So we lock the hatch, and the question’s settled.”
Solares translated what I’d said. Alvarez replied.
“He asks, ‘What now?’” said Solares.
“There are four main tunnels out of here,” I said, “and four of us. Tell him all he’s got to do is follow one of ’em right out of here. He can take whatever guns he wants — there’s no point shooting me and doubling back, since I left the padlock key topside. The only way out is through. We’ll each take a different tunnel, and a radio as well. If anybody sees anything, they’re to call me, and I’ll be there in an instant, like with Mendoza in the bar. I promise I can protect you all, so long as you give me half a chance. And I promise I can kill this thing. We do this right, and no one but the creature has to die down here tonight, okay?”
Solares translated once more. Castillo and Alvarez looked doubtful, but still, they nodded their assent. Then Solares turned to me.