Chapter 12 #3
Nonetheless, Dina felt suspicious eyes climb up his body as he stepped into the club, and there were some whistles behind him, which only made him feel more naked, more ashamed.
Dante was laughing: “What now?” He grinned weakly, his teeth reddened, at Tadeo.
“I don’t have any information to give you, and you’re pretending to be a vigilante while torturing someone who came to get rid of whatever was slaughtering our soldiers.
It’s so stupid. This is so fucking stupid.
There are criminals here. Do you think you made them all run away?
They’ve just learned to be quieter about whatever they’re trafficking through this place.
If there weren’t any criminals left here, then who is paying off the soldiers you’re killing? ”
‘It’s too loud in here,’ Dina thought instantly. ‘Too crowded.’
Bodies were pushing up against him from every side, the bass of the music thudding against his heart and head.
Flashes of light, of every color, were blinding him every other second, and though he was rather tall, tall enough to see over the heads of quite a few, he was half-blindly following Joana ahead of him.
She swerved in between every dancing figure, expertly avoiding their swaying arms with ducks and sidesteps, whereas Dina was just taking each hit.
The stench was sweat, was horribly earthly, was salted, and horribly damp.
Just as the crowding grew less and less dense — a bar with a hundred glass bottles behind a long counter came into view.
Almost two dozen people were there, many coming and going between the dance floor and the bartenders, but at the center, there was an older man, dressed in a red button-up, rosary on his chest, dark tejana hat on his head, and there was a short, wide glass in his left hand with a square block of ice among sunny-orange liquid.
There were three other men at his sides; one nudged the central figure before he turned back and looked at Joana. With a grin, he gestured her over and said, “Joana, there you are. What fucking mess we’re dealing with, no?”
“Hi,” Joana greeted, “uncle,” though he was nothing of the sort. And once she’d neared him, the man pulled her into a one-armed hug, patting her back, then kissing her cheek.
“Who’s this you brought with you?” He stared at Dina over Joana’s shoulder and smiled amicably before Joana pulled back.
“I don’t have updates on the captured soldier yet,” Joana said.
“My guess is that the state is trying to take on Tadeo because he’s been killing too many soldiers, so they think he’s with the traffickers.
But that doesn’t make sense to me. I was wondering if all that Tadeo is doing is disrupting trade — the legal kind — and the other side of the river is getting involved. Where is my dad? Is he not here yet?”
“Don’t sound so sad, mija,” the man said.
“Nothing to be worried about yet. We have gasoline, oil, and we’ll be selling it at a good price to the people if they come to us.
We will take good care of them.” He grinned, then squeezed her arm.
“And the state knows he’s working for us.
” The traffickers. “Even if he doesn’t mean to.
” The kingpin, of the traffickers, laughed warmly.
Joana ran her tongue over the gums at the back of her lower teeth, tasted blood.
‘Keep having him kill our competition,’ he might as well have said to her ears.
‘Keep controlling him for us. You will be rewarded handsomely, girl. Aim him in the right direction.’ And there would be peace, but only because the turf wars had ended, and now the town was in the iron grip of one group, one man, a kingpin of substances and bodies and blood.
“Have a drink,” cheerfully urged the kingpin, “I won’t tell your dad.” Without missing a beat, he teased, “Just how I don’t tell him about you and my daughter.”
Tadeo, slowly, said what Joana had told him they should ask as they left the house: “What can we do to get the gasoline back? Who can I talk to? I’m not a criminal. I have no shame.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Dante, and an odd silence followed, broken only by the drops of his blood falling from his hand. “I’m just a soldier. How many times do I have to tell you? You’re so fucking naive. You think you can just end things by killing the right people.”
“I have one last question for you,” Tadeo said, and when Dante didn’t reply, he asked it anyway: “Do you want to live?”
“Dina,” Joana said as she was handed two tall, cooled glasses.
“Come, have some of this.” The angel waited, but the star in his head said nothing, so he took one glass, lifted it to his lips and felt the rim burn his mouth from how cold it was.
He sipped anyway, then made a face at the taste.
“Good, right?” Dina wasn’t sure, but he experimentally tried to have some more, though he flinched again.
“That guy wants to dance with you.” She jerked her head at one of the men by the bar, beside the kingpin she’s been talking to.
“You should. We might be here a little while.”
Dina instantly shook his head. “I can’t—”
“What, you scared of God? Scared of looking gay?” she laughed. “Isn’t the world going to end? Try it. See why humans love sin so much.”
Again, Dina waited for guidance from his star, but there was none, and so when the man approached, he allowed his free hand to be taken, and he felt himself pulled toward the crowd.
Dante answered: “Of course I want to, idiot. Let me go.”
Tadeo said, “You know too much about me for me to let you live.”
“I don’t know anything,” Dante drawled. “I don’t even know what you fucking are. I saw you turn into some giant… thing. I saw you turn into a giant. If you’re going to kill me, at least explain what I saw.”
Tadeo inhaled through his nose, considering ending this all, ripping out the rest of the soldier’s arm then his head.
Instead, he confessed quietly, “I don’t know.
I don’t know either. Ten years ago, I died, and I came back from the dead like this.
I think that God blessed me.” Dante’s expression flickered with something, perhaps surprise.
“I could turn into that… giant. I was ashamed after I came back from the dead, though. I refused to go out. I even let my family think I was dead for some time.” Cautiously, he took steps toward his captive, looking down at him much calmer than before.
“After I showed them what I was, what I could do — they were scared of me.”
“Why did you start killing criminals?” asked Dante with a levelheadedness that surprised Tadeo as well.
“A friend.” Joana. “She made me do it. I was scared of myself, but she told me I had a duty.”
“Hm.” Dante laughed, though it seemed humorless. “So, you resurrected. God blessed you. Of course.”
Tadeo glared his single eye. “You saw it for yourself.” And, without thinking, he reached for the bandages of his face, tugging them harshly aside to show the enormous gape in his head, how it passed all the way through, how all the brain matter he had remaining was visible at an angle.
Except Dante was looking at his feet again. “I did. I really fucking did.”
“Then?”
“I don’t believe in God,” he confessed, “but I suppose I can believe in you.”