Octavia's War (2 page)

By then, the bloody and silent prisoner was in no condition to be released and left to wander back into Texas.

The argument had raged for twelve hours. Severo was all for chopping the Fed to pieces and burying the pieces along the banks of the Rio.

Ángel had been the voice of reason, as always. He had pointed out that killing an American federal official would bring the wrath of the States down upon them. On the other hand, if they delivered him to the border, it would repel any retribution. With the wars against the northern cartels already on the point of bubbling over, they couldn’t afford to start yet another war, this time with an implacable enemy with more resources than every other cartel put together.

They would be slaughtered to a man if they went ahead.

Ángel had argued passionately, yet Enrico had listened to Severo, as always. Enrico was a smart man except when it came to his older son. Everyone else could see Severo was unstable.

“We kill him,” Enrico had declared. “We do not chop him up, Severo. I don’t care how much you want to. We drop the body on the other side of the Rio. It will serve as a message.”

Severo had not liked that decision. Yet his father was the one man he obeyed to the letter. He had dragged Bear Dawson out into the middle of the compound and shot him in the back of the head with a Glock 17. Octavia had watched it from the window of Severo’s bedroom, her fingers gripping the sill, digging into the paintwork and leaving crescents.

Thank god the foul psychopath did not like sex after he had killed. He had left her alone since then.

Discovering that a DEA official had gotten so close to the family’s center of operations had put the fear of God into Enrico Garcia. He had raged that he would find the weakness that had made them so vulnerable and he would eliminate it.

And now all the men who had been guarding the compound the night Bear Dawson had stolen past them lay in pieces on the handwoven rug in the front room of the house behind them.

“Why are you here?” Ángel demanded of her.

“Me?” She let her surprise show. “Enrico asked me to meet him here.”

“You were lured here, too?” Ángel asked. “Were you also late? Did he give you a time to be here?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said slowly. “He tells me where to be. I turn up and wait until he’s done with whatever he’s doing. You know how it goes.”

“Then, if he didn’t know when you were going to be here, he could come back to finish this.”

“To finish…us….” she added slowly.

Ángel nodded.

Octavia found her mouth curling down. “I never supposed it would ever end happy with the lunatic. Never thought he’d mark me as a target either. Guess I’m the fool.” She shrugged. “I spoke too loudly about not killing the Fed.”

“Did you?” Ángel’s brow rose.

She sighed. “You were the only one making sense. Everyone else was all worried about how big their balls were now a Fed had sneaked passed them.” She grimaced. “Idiots,” she added quietly.

Ángel grinned. It was a quick expression, gone just as fast as it had arrived. “It’s going to take them time to figure out exactly who is in the room, here. We should use it to get as far away as possible.”

“Run, you mean?”

“There’s nowhere for us to go except north. Into the States.”

“Wetback?”

“Do you have papers that’ll let you cross officially, that
won’t
tell my brother exactly where you are?”

Octavia kept her mouth shut. There were a hundred different ways she could answer that and none of them were anything she could say aloud.

Ángel took her silence as confirmation. “Then we head north east, straight to the border. The Rio is only twenty miles away. We drive as far as we can, then we walk.”

Octavia considered it. She had been a semi-valuable member of Garcia’s operation because she was the only one who could keep Severo’s excesses to a minimum. Sometimes even she had been unable to control him, because she was a woman. Now Severo had her on his hit list and Ángel, too. His own brother. Her mouth turned down. “I guess my time in Chihuahua is at an end. Okay,” she said softly. “America it is.”

His kiss came out of nowhere. His big hand curled around her neck and held her steady and his lips pressed against hers. They were hot and soft, yet there was an unyielding firmness behind them that was electrifying. Energy coursed through her, driven by her surprise and more. Nerves sizzled and snapped and her breath evaporated.

Ángel was a good looking man, which she had noticed in a vague way, the first time she had met him, a year ago. She had not gotten close to him. His liberal politics made him a pariah in the family and only his status as Enrico’s second son gave him any protection. Getting to know him at all would have been dangerous for her, even if she had admired him from a distance.

She had deliberately
not
thought of him in any sort of sexual context, only now, suddenly, that was all she could think about. All the moments when she had watched him from the corner of her eye. All the times she had wondered what it might have been like if Ángel had been the one to take her for his own….

Ángel let her go.

“What, now your brother is done with me, you’re taking over?” she asked. Her voice was rough, husky with longing.

Ángel stepped back, frowning. “I don’t know why I did that,” he said, with an air of confession. “It was suddenly all I could think about.”

Octavia kept her mouth shut again.

The screams that split the silence made them both jump. They were coming from the front of the house.

“Someone has found them,” Octavia said, her heart thundering. The arousal turned to acid mush in her veins.

“We can’t be seen here,” Ángel said urgently. He grabbed her hand. “Come.” He turned and ran.

Alexander saw the tall shadow on the other side of the courtyard, not quite hidden among the deeper shadows cast by the late moon. It was standing with non-human stillness, despite the human shape.

The back of his neck prickled heavily.

He put away the CIA wallet and nodded at the Federal Police Sub-officer. The man was completely out of his element here. A single cartel assassination was usually ignored. A dozen bodies torn to shreds and half-eaten couldn’t be explained and couldn’t be tucked away.

No wonder everyone in Santa Maria had evacuated within hours of it happening. Fear drove most Mexicans into running, the ancient instincts forcing them into fleeing into the land.

“Looks as though there’s a villager left after all,” he told the Sub-officer, Gonzales. “I’ll talk to him. You should call in your supervisors at the
Policía Federal
. They can help with this.”

Gonzales nodded. “You’re not leaving, are you?” he asked anxiously.

“Not right now,” Alexander assured him.

He looked relieved.

Alex moved over to the corner of the verandah where the shadow stood. “Remmy Dalton. I thought that was you. I didn’t know you were in Mexico.” He held out his hand.

Remmy squeezed it. “I was here in my human capacity, until three days ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the remains in the middle of the courtyard. “This is not a complication I was expecting.”

“What happened three days ago?” Alex asked.

“I was executed by Garcia’s people.” He shrugged. “The end of Bear Dawson. I was hiding out here to consider what to do next.”

“You could always help me,” Alex said.

“You’re chasing the Grimoré, still?”

Alex didn’t let his body move or react in any way the Sub-officer would see. “What do you think did this?” he asked.

“This was Grimoré?” Remmy was startled and Alex could see his pale eyes widen.

“Who did you think did it?” Alex asked.

“
La Espada
.” Remmy shrugged.

“It’s been a long time since I was down this way,” Alex said apologetically.

“Severo Garcia. Son of the head of the Garcia cartel.”

Alex was surprised. “You think a human did this?”

“I don’t think Severo Garcia has much that is human left in him. This sort of thing is just the next step up. He was going to turn me into fillets and leave me for the crows in the Rio Grande valley.”

“Sounds as if he’s someone to avoid at all costs,” Alexander said. “I knew a few like him in San Diego.” He shifted on his feet. “Come with me. Help me hunt the vampeen down. They’ll be slow.” He grimaced. “They’ve just fed,” he explained.

Remmy let out a deep breath. “I can’t,” he said apologetically. “What are you doing in Mexico, anyway, Alex? I thought you were in New York, hiding away from everyone you knew.”

“I was.” Alex shrugged. “How much do you know about the Grimoré?”

“My clan passed on all the data. The threesomes forming to fight them…that sounds like a stretch to me.”

“It’s all true,” Alex said flatly.

Remmy’s grin faded. “You’re mixed up in that?”

“I am.” Alex took the wide-brimmed hat off and fanned his face with it. It was three in the morning, yet still warm despite being December. The air was still and thick in this walled courtyard and the stench would be overwhelming if he let himself think about it.

No wonder the Sub-officer had looked so bewildered.

Alex considered Remmy. “There are more trinities forming,” he said. “Each of us who is already in one is finding secondary trinities. Basic mathematical progression,” he added.

“Right. I forgot about that math freak thing of yours,” Remmy said. “You’re here to create a second trinity?”

“I don’t create it. It forms by itself. I just have to find it…and before the Grimoré do.”

“Guess they don’t like the idea of threesomes ganging up on them,” Remmy said, smiling. From his expression, Alex could tell he still thought the trinities were a cute excuse for adventurous sex.

“You don’t understand,” Alex said heavily. “Before the trinity forms, it’s just three people. Not even people. We’ve got vampires, humans, hunters, a succubus, even a ghost. There are all sorts make up the trinities. They’re nothing before the trinity bonds. After it bonds, though, the trinity is so powerful it can hold back a small army of the fuckers that did this.”

Remmy looked over Alex’s shoulder. He didn’t have to stretch to do it, because he was almost the same height as Alex. His gaze settled back on Alex. “Everyone is stronger?”

“And linked, mentally and physically.” Alex shrugged. “You’re not going to properly understand this unless you’re in one. You can still help, though. We need all the help we can get.”

“You’re losing,” Remmy said flatly.

“We’re at the turn of the tide,” Alex shot back. “The next few weeks will settle things. We’d like to make sure they get settled the right way.”

“So if you don’t form the trinity, if it just forms all by its lonesome, then why did you come down here?”

“To help the new trinity protect itself. It will be linked to me,” Alex said. “Until the trinity is sealed, the three will be exposed, vulnerable and hunted.”

“By the things that did that?” Remmy didn’t indicate the mess behind Alex, either.

“That’s right.”

“They came for this trinity?”

“I was pulled here. They were, too.” Alex held out his hand. “Help me find them.”

Remmy shook his head. “I’ve got something to do.”

“You’re dead. What else is there for you to do except find your next life?” Alex said harshly. “Help us fight the Grimoré, then you can figure out what you’re going to do.”

Remmy looked regretful. “It sounds like fun,” he said. “These Grimoré of yours are a nasty threat and not just to you. I can see that. Only there’s someone I left in Garcia’s household. I have to get her out.”

“You wouldn’t be able to do that if you were human, because you’d be rotting by now,” Alex pointed out.

“Normally, I wouldn’t try to reach back,” Remmy said. “Octavia is a fully capable field agent and can get herself out of trouble, if the trouble is the ordinary kind. If these things are moving across the state, though, she has no idea what is coming down on her. I owe it to her to at least warn her.”

Alex considered him. “Is Octavia someone special, Remmy?” he asked.

Remmy’s lips parted in surprise. “No,” he said flatly. Almost angrily. “It’s not like that. Not at all.”

Alex held up his hand. Peace. “Okay. Warn your lady friend. Then come and help me.”

Remmy drew in a breath. “I’ll consider it, once I know Octavia’s situation. Could be I might have to make arrangements to have her pulled out. She’s cozy with the fucker I thought did this.”

“
La Espada
?” Alex asked, startled.

“Not her choice,” Remmy said shortly. “Severo took a shine to her. Any man with a pulse would and he’s more ornery than most. Wants what he wants. Daddy’s favorite and all that jazz.” He shrugged.

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Alex said truthfully. He understood the patriarchal hierarchy better than many white men. It had gotten him killed in the first place and had delivered Mia to him, in the second.

Then,
finally
, the disparate facts connected up in his mind with an almost audible click. Remmy, a vampire, here in a tiny village in northern Mexico, where vampires were very thin upon the ground. A village the vampeen had arrowed in upon.

“Oh Jesus Christ on a pony,” Alex breathed. “Remmy, I think you’re one of the trinity.”

Remmy grew still once more. Alex could see him turning it over in his mind, considering every angle. Remmy had always been good at strategizing.

Then he shook his head again, his wheat-blond hair gleaming in the fitful moonlight. “Doesn’t matter. Not right now. I’ve got something to do.”

“You don’t understand. These vampeen are going to hunt you across the landscape. They know they have to get you before you find the other two, whoever they are.”

“This would be the same landscape that Octavia is standing on?” Remmy shot back. “Save it, Alexander. I’m going to see her safe, first. Then we can talk about your trinities.”

Alex didn’t push the matter. He had known Remmy in San Diego, when the gang had been breathing down his neck. He had known him to be a ruthless man, with no patience for idiots. A man who had hewn his own path. Alex had respected him and kept his distance.