Drawn by David Alan Jones

Author:David Alan Jones [Jones, David Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Published: 2019-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

15

Guadalupe Victoria

It was six p.m. when the convoy arrived at Guadalupe Victoria, a tiny village in northern Mexico. The sun hung low on the horizon, coloring the clouds in reds and pinks.

Despite the state of war, crossing the border had been easy. Given the amount of concentrated charm held by the thirty men and women of their company, they probably could have told the guards at the military checkpoint they were transporting the Pope to the front lines and still gotten permission to proceed.

“You sure this is the place?” Matt asked from the driver’s seat of their blacked-out Suburban.

“As sure as I can be,” Myra Hanks said.

Per Robin Ambrose’s sources inside the Indrawn Breath, special teams of takers had been dispatched immediately after the invasion with a mandate to track down and capture succubi in Mexico. Working autonomously, these teams were difficult to track, unless you had a near-clairvoyant former math teacher to lead the way.

Rose stared out the window at the town. Its single road, a pitted and pot-holed dirt affair, made their truck shudder, its suspension groaning in protest. Like many tiny pueblos she had seen on the drive in, this one contained a handful of stone buildings at its center surrounded by a few outlying shacks too small to be called houses. Unlike the others, however, its cobblestoned square featured a large, burbling fountain and a parish church. The church’s façade, painted a dusty pink trimmed in red, put Rose in mind of old western movies. A bell tower jutted from it, the highest point for miles.

Several of the village’s citizens appeared from their stucco homes to watch the newcomers. A woman stood hugging her son to her side in the lee of a weather-beaten building. An older couple riding a pair of matching rockers in front of what looked like a butcher’s shop watched them with obvious distrust. And still more faces, solemn and stoic, appeared at windows, watching in silent interest.

Matt’s voice buzzed over the team’s main communications channel. “Contact crew, assemble next to that fountain. Everyone else remain in the vans. These people have got no reason to trust a bunch of American invaders, especially if they’re slinkers looking to avoid the government.”

Rose checked the tiny camera affixed to her body armor. Still there. Wearing the thing made her self-conscious, but the Pruett twins insisted, as did Robin and Matt. The boys claimed watching firsthand video put them in the now, whatever that meant. Rose hoped it wouldn’t capture her doing something stupid.

A hot May wind whispered through the square as Rose and the other contact team members climbed from the van. Even with evening coming on, the heat was stifling, the air dry and full of blowing dust. Rose wanted to peel off her body armor. The stuff felt like top-grade insulation. But the op order specified all team members had to remain buttoned up. No one knew what to expect from the locals.

Rose stood between Matt’s deputy, Tanner Watts, and her old draw sergeant, Gloria Torres, who had brought three members of her team along.

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