Beautiful Sacrifice

CHAPTER EIGHT

HUNTER GROANED, TWISTING IN THE COILS OF A NIGHTMARE.

Suzanne, trapped in a beat-up truck, hammering against the window with her little palms flat and red, her eyes so wide that they’re more white than brown. The truck is parked on a frozen lake, so cold that Hunter feels his skin split and bleed.

Icy blue fog claws its way around the truck tires while something laughs like breaking bones.

No, not bones. The ice is breaking, the blue fog rising in fingers shaped like a shaman’s smoke dreams. Ancient glyphs smiling death.

He runs and gets nowhere, heart slamming, open mouth screaming “NOOOOOO,” and his cries are more glyphs, more death.

More bones breaking, ice smoking into blue nothing.

The back end of the rusty Ford slips away first, shards of blue teeth chewing up the truck bed. Suzanne with her father’s eyes staring at Hunter, beating on the window with small fists, smears of blood. She is sideways now and the icy teeth and glyph, blue fire and red death, chewing, chewing.

Sweat glazes Hunter’s body, his heart beating like his daughter’s fists, his body frozen in blue ice and fire.

The car slips deeper into the hungry blue while Hunter, frozen in a glyph, watches helplessly, screaming, Suzanne dying—

The phone trilled at Hunter, dragging him from the nightmare. For long moments he didn’t know where he was, who he was, how he was alive. A last ripple of thunder came through the apartment walls. A storm, not ice breaking, not him screaming, his body slicked with sweat.

Goddamn. Goddamn.

He hadn’t had a dream that bad since Suzanne had died in a single-car rollover accident with her mother and drunken father. No ice, no water, except in his nightmares.

The phone stopped ringing, then started up again. Hunter grabbed it.

“Yeah?” he asked hoarsely, looking at his alarm clock.

He’d slept well into the next day. No wonder he felt like roadkill.

“Hunter?” Jase asked. “You sound like something the cat dragged in and rammed down the garbage disposal.”

“What’s up?” Hunter asked. The last thing he wanted to talk about was why he sounded the way he sounded.

“I got a tip from someone who owes me. A bust is going down that sounds like it might be interesting. I’m out front.”

“My car or yours?”

“Mine. Some of the agents are used to seeing it.”

Hunter swigged the dregs of yesterday morning’s coffee straight out of the carafe, jammed his feet into his jungle boots, and went out to meet Jase. It was hot, stinking hot. The thunder that echoed in the distance hadn’t brought any rain.

Hunter got into Jase’s white minivan, slammed the door, and fastened his belt.

“I’m not going to say anything,” Jase said. “Don’t want to prejudice you.”

Hunter grunted. Silence was just fine with him

Jase drove through Houston to Willerton Lane. Going through this part of Houston was like peeling back time, skinning away years and watching things get meaner and meaner until the low stucco buildings went feral. Sunbaked and blasted, mangy lawns reverted to swatches of prairie yellow, dead for lack of water. Weeds grew waist-high and finally starved out, leaving behind a prickly thicket that you could lose bodies in.

ICE and Houston PD had cordoned off the area. Patrol cars were sitting with rollers blinking urgent colors, moving aside only for official vehicles. Neighborhood people watched from porches, nursing the second or third cerveza of the day while the children played with faded plastic toys in a heat that was more summer than winter. The sky reflected the neighborhood. Sullen.

Jase flashed his badge and got waved through with a nod and a glare of sun from the cop’s mirrored aviator sunglasses. Nobody seemed to care that Hunter was in the passenger seat, probably because he looked rough enough to be an undercover agent. Jase pulled over to the decaying curb behind a newly minted Houston blue-and-white. Under other circumstances, the high-gloss finish would have been irresistible to neighborhood taggers.

Jase didn’t move to get out.

“Now what?” Hunter asked. He needed something to keep his mind off his nightmare or his second taboo line of thought—Lina’s scent, her warmth, her lush lips made for the sweetest kind of sin.

She must think I’ve disappeared again.

“We don’t get to move in until after the door is cracked,” Jase said.

The house on Willerton had been left to abscess for a long time. It was rotten to its foundation. But that wasn’t what kept neighbors at a distance.

“The bad guys live here,” Hunter said. “No graffiti.”

Every other house on the block had been tagged, broken into, and then patched up. But this old house would be standing long after the neighborhood was abandoned and stripped. Nobody would be messing with the sun-faded stucco, because real predators lived here. The only things new about the house were the security doors and bars on the windows. They were black steel, powder coated, and looked like they could turn a bullet shot from the street.

“Nice bars,” Jase said.

“Stupid,” Hunter said. “Limits your field of fire from the inside.”

“Dude, sometimes I worry about you.”

Nearby a tactical van was parked close enough to do some good, but not close enough to get in the way. Two snipers lay on the van’s roof, covering the front of the house and yard. Hunter knew there would be another van just like it on the opposite side of the house, with ICE troops ready to come over the back fence if anyone tried to rabbit.

An electronically amplified voice boomed from the van in front of the house, advising the occupants of the house that they were officially required to quit the premises with hands on head.

The house stayed quiet.

“That’s the third warning,” someone shouted. “Take it down.”

A group of men cut the chain on the fence’s gate and moved in fast, marching up the cracked walkway in black fatigues and vests that clearly spelled out ICE in what seemed to be mile-high yellow silkscreen. All of them carried handguns at a precise forty-five-degree angle from the ground.

The agents swept up the short stoop. They didn’t bother knocking. One of them stepped to the side and yelled, “Clear!”

“Det cord?” Hunter asked. Explosive cord made short work of locks.

“No, on houses like this—”

Gunshots rang out. The door shuddered and swayed, held on only by the dead bolt.

“—they shoot out the hinges and kick in the rest,” Jase finished.

Someone wrapped his climbing cord around the doorknob and took a good five steps back, bracing to pull. A big agent went to work around the dead bolt with a pry bar. The door clattered to the ground and skidded out into the front yard.

“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. COME OUT BEFORE WE COME IN.”

No response.

An agent armed two flash-bangs and tossed them inside the open doorway. He counted down with his fingers, starting at three, two, one.

For an instant the gloom of the darkened interior went thermite bright. Sounds like a fireworks display gone psycho rolled through the neighborhood. Glass shattered behind one of the barred windows. Agents streamed into the house two by two, sweeping the rooms.

Hunter was relieved no more shooting came. Despite his training, he really didn’t want to have to go med-tech on anyone right now.

Soon six men were sitting cross-legged in the prickly yellow weeds that made up the front yard. Their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Eight cops stood around them, weapons low but attentive.

“Bet those bad boys have jailhouse tats and iron-pile abs,” Jase said.

“Sucker bet.” Hunter rolled the window down, flinched, and swore under his breath. “Something’s been dead for a while.”

“And not buried,” Jase agreed. “Stay here until I make sure it’s cool for a visitor.”

Hunter settled back. It would take time to Mirandize the gangbangers in the weeds and secure the house. He checked the glove compartment and found the little pair of binoculars Jase always kept there, just in case.

Quietly Hunter focused on the seated men. Only one of them tripped his radar. The man was darker than the others, calmer, and had tats like multicolored serpent scales winding up his brawny arms. No reptilian head in sight.

While agents hauled out the rock cocaine and precursors from the kitchen, others pulled enough weapons from the house to start—and finish—a war. The guns came out in green nylon rucksacks that looked like they had been dragged up and down the Dirty Coast a few hundred times. And then there were the knives. From what Hunter could see, Gerbers and Ontarios were the local favorites. One Bowie-style knife as long as his forearm had DULCE BESO engraved on the blade.

“‘Sweet Kiss,’” Hunter muttered to himself. “Those are some whacked-out dudes.”

All of the agents who came out of the house looked a little paler than when they had gone in—even Jase, who had emerged to chat up the agent who was questioning the gangbangers in the weeds.

Finally Jase came back to the van. “With me,” he said to Hunter. “Be seen but not heard.”

“Got it. The dude with the snake tats looks like a cousin to LeRoy’s visitors.”

“The agent questioning him thinks he has a Yucatec accent,” Jase said. “Can’t be sure. The agent’s mother was born in Guatemala, near the border, but they still visit family.”

Hunter followed Jase across the weeds that were being trampled by all the traffic. Once they were inside, the house was dark with more than a lack of light. Beneath the smell of flash-bangs was something grim. Not simply dirty, but foul.

The living room was jammed with leather furniture that had once been expensive. Then had come years of being used for everything from ashtrays to whetstones. The coffee table was supported by cinder blocks stamped with a colorful flower pattern. The table itself was made of mismatched boards that probably had been stolen from a construction site. Spanish-language telenovela magazines were scattered about, as well handled as the centerfolds tacked to the grimy walls. The tits-and-ass needed no translation.

Wonder if they hoped Juan Carlos would choose Tilde or Mariana for eternal bliss, Hunter thought.

“Guess these gangbangers and my mom have something in common,” Jase said. “The magazines, not the skin pics.”

“Scary idea,” Hunter muttered.

The kitchen was dominated by a gigantic, soot-caked gas range. Butcher-block tables had been pushed together to make a large work surface. On it was a cardboard box filled with tiny Ziploc bags.

“Your mom’s kitchen smells better,” Hunter said.

“Drugs stink like the crap they are.”

The counter was covered by red plastic cylinders filled with white powder and chunks, or pale salmon-colored flakes.

“Could be the candles that stink,” Hunter said.

The stalks of wax were black, as thick around as a strong man’s arm. Near them was an eerie snake-man statue. Maya in style, it looked like smoke made solid as it escaped a snake’s mouth. Glyphs marched down the length of the piece.

“Not antique,” Hunter said before Jase could ask. “Mass-produced, on sale in any tourist trap in the Yucatan, Belize, or Guatemala.”

“Huh. The dudes out in the weeds aren’t Latin Kings or any of the other gangbangers around here. I didn’t recognize their tats. Neither did the agents I talked to. Which just makes the strange even stranger. The tip on this house came from the cellmate of the gangbanger that shanked the artifact driver.”

“Nice to know somebody still wants reduced time,” Hunter said.

“I just overheard an agent say the dude that ordered the hit on the driver of the load was at this address.”

“Señor Snake has my money.”

“Yeah. He’s the lion in this bunch of jackals.”

An agent stormed up the basement steps and shoved by Jase, hand over mouth, throat working, face pale and sweating. He made it out the back door before he threw up everything but his toenails.

“Oh, this will be fun,” Jase said, turning toward the basement.

Hunter followed.

On the way down the stairs, they passed a female agent headed up. She was pale but otherwise fine.

“How is Chuy?” she asked.

“He made it outside,” Jase said.

“If you can give the basement a pass, you’ll sleep better,” she said through pale lips.

“Wish we could,” Jase said, “but thanks.”

She nodded and went to check on her partner.

Halfway down the stairs, Hunter knew why someone was out in the back puking. The smell of death was thick enough to cut and serve at a demon brunch. Hunter started to breathe through his mouth. So did Jase. It didn’t help much, but it was all they had to fight the smell.

While Jase went to talk to the lone agent protecting the scene, Hunter made himself invisible in the shadows near the stairs.

A fluorescent lantern held by the agent revealed the basement in slightly swaying arcs that matched the man’s careful breaths. There were racks of unlit candles and stands for larger torches. The floor was concrete, worn smooth in places, cracked in others, gleaming dully. There were patches of what looked like oil, so dark that they sucked up and swallowed any light. The splotches were mute testimony to something so revolting that the only thing left to do was bolt for fresh air and throw up.

Hunter’s hackles rose. He’d seen death sites before, but not like this. This basement told him why people believed in evil.

The radio feeding information into the agent’s ear crackled and the lantern jerked. Then it steadied at a different angle, revealing something in the far corner of the room. A pale stone table glistened in the light. The legs were carved to look like a large cat’s paws, ending in sharp claws that dug into the concrete floor itself. Given the context, Hunter assumed that the paws were meant to represent a jaguar, the sacred animal of Maya royalty. Blood had dripped down, wrapping around the legs like snakes. It had happened so often that the legs looked black. But for all the evidence of past bloodletting, only a small amount had ended up on the basement floor near the altar.

Jase mentioned another bloody crime scene, but the table was missing, Hunter though grimly, remembering the killing house his friend had described. Don’t really want to know how many people died on that stone altar, here or there.

The smeared darkness on the floor made sense, now. Bleeding bodies had been dragged off the table, across the cement, and ignored until it was time to dispose of them.

Jase swore, his ugly words fitting the basement like the smell. Then his voice dropped again as he and the agent holding the lantern continued their conversation in the low tones of people who don’t want the devil to overhear.

As the lantern swayed, Hunter memorized every bit of the room that he could see. The stone face mounted on the wall over the altar was as carefully made as the jaguar table itself. Savage and grim, the face was that of a god who would never be appeased, no matter the quantity or quality of blood sacrifices that came to its hungry table. The face proudly displayed the features of Maya nobility, topped off by a crown of lightning or claws or knives that scored deep into forehead and temples. The gently swaying light made the wounds appear to bleed.

Whatever that artifact’s age, the stone face was genuine in a way that had nothing to do with provenance and everything to do with the darkest side of human nature.

Ignoring the slow crawl of his flesh, Hunter stared at the face. I’ve seen something like this before. Was it in Tulum? Cancun? A roadside shrine?

The god’s features were broad and strong. Like the table, the craftsmanship was surprisingly fine. The eyes were empty yet stared through him, through the basement, through the world to a different reality Hunter really didn’t want to share.

The lantern swung as the agent turned toward the stairs. A pool of darkness became a tarp someone had pulled aside to reveal what was beneath. A single look told Hunter more than he wanted to know.

No head. No hands. No feet. A black gash where the heart should be. Blue glyphs, the paint blurred by sweat before death. A wad of clothes the body didn’t need anymore.

The gold DeWatt logo gleamed as light passed over it.

After a few more minutes of low conversation, Jase left the agent and walked quickly through the gloom to where Hunter waited.

“Need to see anything more?” Jase asked very softly.

“No.”

“The chicken will hit the fan real soon. Let’s get out of range.”

With the attitude of men on a mission, they climbed the stairs and strode to the van.

The eyes of the prisoner they had dubbed Snake followed them across the weedy yard.

“Hope somebody shanks that reptilian son of a bitch,” Jase said as they got into the minivan.

“I’d like to talk to him first.”

“In your dreams.” Jase cranked the engine hard. “He’s already lawyered up.”

“Anybody we know?” Hunter asked.

“The biggest narco defense lawyer in Texas.”

“Adios, information.”

“That’s the way the game is played. Mopes die, lawyers get paid, nobody cries.”

Jase drove away from the rotting house, handling the controls with an edgy speed that didn’t suit the minivan.

“The stone face and the table,” Hunter said. “Could they have been taken from that other killing house you told me about while I looked at your photos yesterday morning?”

“Good catch. I’ll tip the sheriff. Always good to play nice with local law. You see anything else?”

“A DeWatt logo on the clothes in the corner.”

“Damn, I knew there was a reason I brought you,” Jase said, smiling.

“Did your schmoozing pay off?”

Hunter had never known anyone who could suck out information like Jase. He could walk through a half-empty parking lot and come up with three new friends and enough street information to fill a telephone book.

“There’s an ICE Special Detachment agent back there,” Jase said. “He’s out of Brownsville. They’ve been on both houses for a while. They think the mopes we bagged are LDX.”

“Los de Equis?”

“He called them Los de Xibalba.”

“Xibalba. That’s the Mayan word for the underworld. For hell.”

“Figures.”

“Are these guys involved in the artifact trade?” Hunter asked.

“No such luck. They’ve taken a lot of ancient Maya imagery for their tats and jewelry, but all ICE knows for sure is that they’re narco terrorists of the worst kind. LDX is used as an elite enforcement arm by the Q Roo cartel. Killers every one.”

“So they’re like the Zetas? Only they haven’t branched out into their own business yet?” Hunter asked.

“Yes and no.” Jase found an opening in city traffic and shouldered into the flow. “The Zetas started out as a Mexican military unit that was meant to take apart the cartels. Then some Zetas cut loose and went to work for the narcos.”

“So they started as hired guns and finished as head of their own cartel,” Hunter said. “Can’t trust an assassin long enough to blink.”

“But LDX doesn’t seem to have profits as their driving force,” Jase said. “ICE is going nuts trying to get inside their organization. No go.”

“Is Snake LDX?” Hunter asked.

“The special agent didn’t think so. It seems that genuine LDX don’t mark themselves up for the world to see.”

“Gang culture’s all about bragging, flashing the signs, wearing the colors.”

“LDX isn’t a gang like we know it,” Jase said. “The special agent didn’t want to come right out and say it, but LDX is more a cult than anything else.”

Hunter was silent while Jase pushed the minivan like it was a sports car, darting in and out of traffic lanes.

“It fits,” Hunter finally said.

“What?”

“One of my best sources in the Yucatan told me that LDX works with the Q Roo drug cartel, but it’s only to get paid for what LDX would do for free. The Q Roo boasts of having the baddest badasses of them all. LDX makes good on the boast.”

“Beautiful,” Jase said sarcastically. “ICE special investigations first got wind of these guys through some makeshift shrines and the like showing up in prisons. Weird stuff. Crucifixes with snakes wrapped around them and stone faces with rosaries. Monsters made out of scrap stolen from the shops or trash or whatever. Doesn’t matter that Corrections took them down as fast as they found them. It spread. Maybe it started in jail, maybe it got imported.”

“Better and better. A death cult. Serial killers serving a ravenous god.”

“That’s what the special agent thinks,” Jase said unhappily.

A horn blared at someone who had double-parked in front of a coffeehouse. Jase swerved around the vehicle without lifting his foot from the accelerator.

“I’ve seen those cult trappings in the Yucatan,” Hunter said, ignoring the near miss. “Places where real blood is believed to have real power, not just the Santa Muerte drug shrine garbage. This is old, old belief coming back in a new form. The Spanish couldn’t kill it, and they had the Church and the guns on their side. Hard to shut down an idea. Especially if it’s an idea that makes you feel stronger, better.”

“Stronger or crazier?” Jase asked.

“Whichever gets the job done.” Hunter’s hand fisted on the dash. “Damn, I don’t want Lina anywhere near this, yet those artifacts…Damn!”

“I don’t blame you. The body count at the place we just left was four, and they haven’t even begun to dig.”

“But the altar hadn’t been there long enough for the blood running down those table legs to reach the floor.”

“Maybe they wore the old one out.” Jase shrugged. “Kill in the name of cartel profits. Kill in the name of an unknown god. Same result. Dead.”

Hunter clenched his teeth and wished that Lina’s job was curating Teddy Bears Through the Ages. But it wasn’t. No matter how much he hated it, Lina was on the trail of death.

“I don’t like any of this,” Hunter said. “You want to just bag it and come to work for my uncle?”

“What?”

“Just what I said. There’s always a job waiting for you. You know that.”

“Not until ICE throws me out,” Jase said stubbornly.

Silently Hunter hoped that wouldn’t be too late.