Chapter Five #2
“Si, wasn’t she a hitwoman for most of her time in the dark life.” He nodded at me.
“So what about the second man?”
“He’s a tracker. He can track anyone or anything.” Carlos nodded. “And yes, he has a legend too.”
I sat back in my chair and raised a brow at him. “Should I even ask?”
“He is not as complicated as far as a code goes. He is Russian and he’s very good at what he does. But mainly, he’s just a pain in the ass at times.”
I smirked at him. “You mean like you?”
“Ha-ha.” Carlos scoffed. “You know that you love me.” He smirked back at me now.
“So what makes the Russian guy annoying?”
“He fucking knows everything as in he is like a god damned scholarly type.”
“So? That can come in handy sometimes.”
“Not to me.” Carlos chuckled as he raised the phone again. “But he can kick ass so you think first before you tell him to shut the hell up.” He tapped in the number and set it to speaker.
“Hello?” an accented voice answered.
“Is this Prince Ivan?” Carlos asked.
“Da. Do you seek the rain?”
“I do,” Carlos stated. “I wish to vanquish the Firebird.
“Bylat! Is that all?” the man on the other end quipped sarcastically as he laughed. “Blin Carlos, it has been a couple of years!”
“I know.”
“So the roses bloomed, da?” Again, the man’s accent could be heard in his voice.
“They have. The time has finally come,” Carlos replied. Then he gave the man the same information as the other guy about the hotel and the town.
They both ended the call.
Carlos handed the phone to me.
I shook my head. “You need to keep it with you.”
“Yes, I’d better for when they call back. But do you trust me with a phone?”
I smiled at him and folded my hands into my lap. “Si, it is a little late to be asking that, isn’t it?”
He nodded at me as he agreed. “Yeah, we have exchanged phones and you have even seen me in my boxers—”
I raised my hand up, cutting him off. “So what’s with the Firebird thing?” I asked him.
“It’s another legend.”
“And this one involves a bird?”
He smirked. “A sort of Phoenix, yes. It’s some old Russian story.
Let me look it up on Google. “I can’t remember all of it.
” He typed on the phone screen then read it aloud, “Ivan Tsarevich’s quest to capture the Firebird or what they call zhar-ptitsa, a magical glowing bird from a faraway land.
The quest for the Firebird typically is initiated by the hero finding one of the bird’s tail feathers.
The feather portending a hard journey. The secret to subduing this bird and its fiery powers was simple, though no one but Ivan ever figured it out…
it is rain.” Carlos looked up at me and added, “Hence, why he calls himself the Rainmaker.”
“órale, that is rather clever.”
“Don’t tell him that or he will tell you the many tales of Prince Ivan.” Carlos laughed. “So unless you have all day…” He shook his head.
I nodded at him. “I get it. So do these two vatos know each other?”
Carlos sighed. “Yes and that is a problem. They are competitive.”
“Oh, so do they fight?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “It’s all in fun though. Bien, sometimes it is. Mostly, just verbal sparring. These guys love to debate and they obviously love legends.” He shrugged. “I do too, suppose?”
“The Castilian roses?” I asked.
He sighed and looked down at his hands that he also folded into his lap. “I admit, my legend is maybe just as complicated as my two friends. And maybe it is just as crazy. But it’s from our home country. I felt like I got hit with a brick when I read the story.”
I stared at him. “So? Tell me your legend then?”
He smiled at me though his eyes looked sad then he began, “Ok… so one day, a carpenter named Juan, saw an apparition of a woman on a hill near Mexico City. She spoke to him in his native Nahuatl language and when she did that, he recognized her as being the Virgin Mary. She then told Juan she wanted him to build a church at the very top of the barren hill above the town. All the locals knew that the top was all sand. Everyone who lived in that area knew that nothing ever grew there. But when he got to the top, he found it to be awash with blooming Castilian roses. He and Mary gathered the roses and she arranged them inside his cloak. And then doing as she instructed on her feast day, Juan opened his cloak before the Bishop of Mexico City. When he did this, the flowers all fell to the floor, revealing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. And this is the very image we know so well. The one that has been painted in all the Mexican churches. The ones in the stained-glass windows with the image from Juan Diego’s cloak, or tilma.
And it hangs to this day inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City. ”
I nodded. “I have been there on that very hill and I have seen this church.” I tilted my head at him. “Many of our people in Mexico travel there on Feast Day. Then did you say his name was Jaun Diego?”
Carlos nodded. “Yes and again, do not ask me to explain that coincidence. But one thing I am sure of…The Diego Cartel is not related. I hope.”
I took a deep breath and told him, “And there you are wrong. At least Quanto’s father would tell you that.
He claims to come from that family line of all things.
He reminds his son of this often. Why? I have no idea.
Maybe he wants the killing to stop even though he should know better.
His son will not step aside. And I have to agree.
If you show any weakness, you are as good as dead.
” I paused to look at Carlos. “But what does that saint story have to do with the kids?”
“I had the roses inked onto my chest when I found out where they were. In a vow, that someday, I would make that wrong my father did… right. I would climb that hill so to speak and get those kids, then take them to Gabriela. Just like Juan took the roses to the bishop. These two men know the calls I made to them means that I was calling in my favor. As in, the roses have bloomed.”
I stared at him. “Mierda…One thing I never would have guessed was that you, Carlos Castillo…” I shrugged. “Would be so…” I just shook my head. I didn’t know if I should tell him my thoughts or not.