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Chapter 1

I'M STARING OUT THE BEDROOM SLIDING GLASS door feeling sorry for ht is entirely my own fault I could be in France with my family Or at my business partner David's for his annual Christmas Eve bash Why aren't I? Because both would require that I spendto be huht before Christ rain

Rain It's all we've had this winter This is San Diego, for Christ's sake The land of predictable, even boring, weather The land of a constant 72 degrees The land of sun and blue sky

Not this year

I can count on one hand the nu What's the use of being a vao out in?

Even my reporter boyfriend, Stephen, is not around He's with the president visiting the troops overseas He called s Greetings What I want to exchange is bodily fluids But that's not going to happen for another ten days Since there were about a hundred soldiers gathered around awaiting their turn on the computer, we couldn't even talk dirty

Shit Shit Shit

I need to do so vao to find other discontents as sorry ass as she is?

Luckily, I know just the place

BESO DE LA MUERTE LOOKS EVEN MORE DESOLATE and run-down than usual, which says a lot since it's basically a ghost town you won't find on anyin the middle of what could be called Main Street, if the streets had na red-and-green Christhts slumps over the door to Culebra's bar in an attempt, I suppose, to invoke some holiday cheer Half the bulbs are burned out The other half sputter unconvincingly

What was Culebra thinking? Is this his idea of a joke a fuck-you to the season and its forced joviality? Suddenly, I find hts They make me smile

Culebra and I share a warped sense of humor

There's a single car in front of the bar A car that looks fanize whose car it is Then it takesmortal into the black hole of my self-pity

The car belongs to Max, an ex Who better to drag into a black hole than an ex? I shrug off any s and walk inside

Max and Culebra are seated at a table in the middle of the bar Alone They have an open bottle of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel whiskey between the ss at each other If Max didn't look like a well-dressed thug clad all in black, and Culebra like an extra in a spaghetti western, poncho and all, I'd say they belonged in a gentlemen's club

Max spies me first "Well, well Look what the bat flew in"

"Hilarious, Max I see in the newspapers that you DEA dudes have really done your part to win the drug war We're practically narco free"

He shakes his head and clucks his tongue "Ouch"

Go easy on Max, Culebra says, straight fro he can do because he's a shape-shifter and we share a psychic bond He's feeling sorry for himself Alone at Christmas You understand

The last is said in a kind of "there's a lot of that going around, isn't there?" tone

I just grunt

Culebra pushes his chair back and stands up to scoot another chair over frolass from the bar and pours a shot "Drink"

Loquacious as ever But I do take the glass and sip Smooth Tickles the back of the throat and warms a path all the way down

Culebra refills his own glass, then Max's "What brings you here? I figured you'd be at David's shindig"

I take another sip before answering "Too ht want to know them He travels in a different circle"

Max tilts his glass toward me "You mean a human circle, don't you?"

He has the knives out "Who shoved a stake up your ass? I helped you not long ago if I remember correctly You didn't seem to mind what I was then"

Culebra places the bottle down between Max and lass "Come on now Truce It's Christreat and sether this evening Let's make the most of it To friends"

He shoves his glass toward us And looks around expectantly I wait to see if Max will move first He re for me

Shit I want another drink I raise ainst Culebra's Max follows, reluctantly He avoids lass touch mine

We drink

And drink so into ether to hatever pits of dejection brought us here

Alcohol, like blood, is absorbed directly into ue There's a question I've wanted to ask these two since I first saw Max and Culebra together a year and a half ago I had just become vampire and was sent to Beso de la Muerte to hunt down the va undercover in the DEA and he was here, too, on an assign here then, and it seeet that answer now

I pour each of them another shot and dive in "How'd you two come to know each other?"

At first I think Max is going to counter with some bullshit about classified DEA information or fall back on the old "if I tell you, I have to kill you" dodge But he does neither He looks over at Culebra and Culebra shrugs

"She knows everything else"

Max downs his shot It's the fifth since I've been here and I have no idea how many he had before I arrived But the alcohol does sees back at Culebra "Do you want to start or should I?"

Culebra looks hard athow ht that sifts through the haze of alcohol in his head

"Give it your best shot," I quip cavalierly What can he possibly say that will shock hteen months

He draws a breath "You ever heard of Felix Gallardo?"

"Can't say that I have Is he a relative?"

That provokes a snort from Max and a shake of the head from Culebra

"What? Who is he?"

"The godfather of the Mexican drug cartels," Max says

"Godfather?"

Culebra nods "Gallardo was the first to organize the Mexican drug business Started in the late eighties when he realized he was getting too well known and the narco business was getting too big for hiroup of henchnated territories to be run by bosses not yet so well known to the Federales Men who he could trust to report to him"

"It was a s admiration

Must be the booze

"What does that have to do with you?" I ask Culebra

"I worked for one of his lieutenants Boss of the Cartel de Sinaloa"

That nanize, both for the ruthlessness of its e quantities of drugs across the US border "The Sinaloa Cartel, huh? Were you an undercover agent for the Mexican governether?"

"Not exactly" Culebra's eyes grow hard "I was an asesino an assassin"

Culebra an assassin for a narco? I grin "You're kidding right?"

The steady, serious way he gazes back at me raises the hair on the back of my neck

The glass I had just raised toI can be shocked Astonish out of my brain Suddenly I'm sober and shaken How? Why? Questions tumble over themselves in my head

Culebra reads thee e because of what I was" He averts his eyes, sarcases his words with the acid of bitter truth "Shape-shifters are not considered valuable members of society where I come from I was an anomalya freak And treated as such"

A pause, as if he's waiting for hts are conflicted He finally realizes it and continues

"I moved to Baja when I was sixteen Met the boss soon after Becaot married, had a family Worked my way up the ladder"

That evokes a comment "Worked your way up to assassin?"

"I was caught up in the life" He meets my eyes squarely "I'm not proud of it I hated it, but I had a fa back"

I can't believe what I' Or the dead calm tone of Culebra's voice as he speaks "You killed people"

He looks hard at me "And you don't?"

Maxnoise

I glare at hi at Culebra, "I kill because I have to, because I'"

Culebra shrugs "Se someone, too Myself My family I followed orders"

"Your family? Where are they now?"

Culebra waves a hand in a vague sweeping motion "Dead"

Still, no e in his head I can penetrate but a dull pulse beat It's strange As if his answers co on and off like a recorder at the push of the right button Programmed answers