The Children of the Wolf, Page 2

  Chapter Two

  Big Mig liked what he saw. The one on the left. The black hair cascading over her shoulders, the round hips, the sexuality lurking just below the soft olive skin. She was young and ripe. It meant big bucks. Lobo would be proud. His clients would stand in line, fists full of cash, for this one.

  Miguel wasn’t just big. He was huge. 6’7”, probably 270 lbs. after a good day at the gym. Hands like blushing meat hooks. Solid, burnished muscle, and plenty of it. He could inspire terror. He didn’t mind. In this business, it was a good thing to have a reputation like his. Still, even with the dark uni-brow and eyes that danced with violence, some had called him handsome. He didn’t believe it. He believed in Lobo, terror, and maybe money. That was it. But he tried on his least threatening smile and nodded to the budding Mexican beauties as they passed within an arm’s length. He mumbled a soft greeting. They giggled and went on. Maybe he was a bit handsome after all. He made mental notes . . . time, place. These girls were to be remembered . . . perhaps even marked.

  Lobo had taken Miguel off the streets of Tijuana not long after both his parents and his baby sister had found eternal rest --- that’s the way he liked to think of it --- in a barren stretch of desert just to the south. Drugs --- it was always drugs --- and after Lobo had heard the whole story, he helped Mig settle the score. His family was gone, but so were the four mangy jackals. Lobo had smiled as Miguel had crushed the larynx of two of them with his bare hands. He could still hear the gurgle of death, watch as the dogs’ eyes bulged, listen to their feeble cries for mercy. The other two accomplices joined them, a well-placed 9 mm slug in the backs of each of their skulls.

  Since then, Mig had done whatever Lobo had commanded --- no questions. Mig guessed his final destination was hell, but Lobo treated him like a son. And the money, the girls, and the cocaine were all good. At least he was part of something, maybe even a twisted family bound for perdition. Life on earth was its own personal brand of torture. And to put it simply --- when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

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  Priss was short for Priscilla. It was an old-fashioned name. She knew that, but she kind of liked it. It didn’t define who she was. Other things had done that very thoroughly in a hollow, sick, sort of way. She had a job --- if not a life --- but most of the time, it suited her. She was busy. She was involved. And the demons were at bay --- at least most of the time. Her father had abandoned mother and child when she was only six. She’d quietly had plenty of therapy. Abandonment syndrome --- that’s what the shrinks had called it. Prozac had helped some, and the occasional Xanax washed down with a shot of bourbon put her to sleep when there was no alternative. But she hated drugs. She’d seen too many lives drown in addiction. And still there were days when everything turned to shit. She tried to ignore them. She’d learned that from her mother, a brave and intelligent woman who, nevertheless, was damaged in her own private way. Sometimes the quiet in their house was like a shroud that dropped over every word or action, blanketing their existence like a gray storm that just wouldn’t pass . . . a curse that would haunt her endlessly.

  Mostly Priss managed. She got along, did her job, and suppressed the loneliness.

  But she could still hear the words . . . the ones from her latest term in hell.

  “Shut up, bitch. Or you’re dead.”

  The sheets looked clean, but when he threw her down, the damp, clammy cotton stuck to her skin. Her shoes flew off her feet and she sunk into the middle of the worn mattress.

  She could still smell the garlic on his filthy hand as he covered her mouth . . . as she gasped for breath and tried to find an opening. There was none. He was heavy and strong. The glittering blade at her throat kept her motionless and silent. His body smothered hers as he pressed her down onto the bed. The hideous ripping sound of her blouse, her bra, and then her panties.

  “You’re gonna like this,” he said. “All you bitches do.”

  She looked into his blood-tinged eyes. The rage seethed.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Please?” he taunted, “Honey . . . don’t give me that shit. It’s long, thick, and hard. I’ll fill you up. You can’t ask for more than that, can you? I make you a promise. This’ll be the best fuck you ever had. So shut up and enjoy it.”

  She wasn’t sure why she had passed out, but when she woke, she realized she was in a cheap motel room. She was naked and cold. She inhaled his stale sweat, still clinging to her body. Her feet fell onto the gritty carpet. The sand and dirt abraded her bare soles. She covered herself in what was left of her clothes. Was he gone? Was he waiting for another turn at the fetid flesh he just defiled? She cracked the door and peered out. A light breeze chilled her, but the darkness was welcome. Her car was still there. She got in and drove mindlessly.

  At least he hadn’t killed her. She had thought for a moment that those convoluted breaths would be her last. But now that it was over, she made a silent vow that, sooner or later, she’d stuff that filthy dick in his mouth. He’d choke on his own blood and flesh. He’d be the one to breathe his last.

  She told no one. She wasn’t sure why. In her line of work, femininity was often equated with weakness. She couldn’t afford that. So she kept her brown hair cut in a short bob and disguised her ample breasts with a stream of shapeless garments that screamed professional and impersonal, if not “keep the hell away from me”. Actually she’d killed at least two men. That had earned her a grudging respect and even a tinge of fear among her associates. She wasn’t proud of it, but it worked. They called her Detective Maybry to her face and Miss Hard-Ass behind her back. That was okay, too. She needed that veneer, that façade of invincibility. If she reported the rape, it would all vanish like so much smoke caught in a willful breeze. No one could know that the thing she feared most was herself.

  There was a torrent of shame. She wondered if somehow she had brought it on. He’d hurt her. Blood flowed between her legs when she got in the shower at her apartment. But other than a couple of bruises, she was almost all right. Maybe she hadn’t resisted enough --- and maybe the prick was right on the money. Maybe it was the best fuck she’d ever had. The feeling of his massive cock shoving into her had made her gasp. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was wet, maybe even eager. Excitement, passion, a sheer horror of the ultimate transgression, the profanity of it all --- maybe some hellish combination. She didn’t know, but nothing could make the shame subside. It clung to her every waking minute like the scum on a stagnant pond . . . infected, green, almost ghoulish.

  Nevertheless, Priss was very good at putting things aside, at least for a time. She considered it a sick, malignant, gift of neglect, a numbness she effected, a shade, a mask, or maybe just a wall of emotional brick and mortar so thick it couldn’t be penetrated. She’d learned it from her mother --- that ability to shunt the ugly and the intolerable from her consciousness and lastly from the abyss that was sometimes her mind. Still there were nights that became unbearably cold --- when she shivered and whimpered in and out of tormented sleep. When it happened, she comforted herself with the obsession that someday, somehow, she would find him --- and that would be the last time that anyone did.