The Devil's Bag Man Read online

  “I know the timing is kind of crazy.” She caught his eye, held it, squeezed his hand between both of hers. “But you want this, right?”

  “More than anything in the world,” he said, and Ruth pitched forward into his arms.

  Nichols pressed his cheek to the top of her head, closed his eyes, and tried to figure out what it was he felt. A soaring sense of hope, for sure. Of possibility. The searing burn of love, for Ruth and for their baby.

  And also a pounding trepidation, like a drum inside his stomach.

  How do you bring new life into a world you don’t even recognize?

  For reasons that were beyond him, the phrase no free lunch popped into Nichols’s head, and once it was there it wouldn’t leave.

  CHAPTER 10

  The late-afternoon rush was crazy, one youth soccer team after the next, the place filled up with the high-pitched laughter of seven- and eight- and nine-year-olds, kids too young to practice proper cone management, the ice cream sliding down their elbows in white and brown and peppermint-green rivulets, their parents giving duck-walk chase with wadded-up paper napkins while their own scoops went melty in their Dixie cups.

  Sherry could watch kids be kids forever, as long as they were somebody else’s responsibility. Had she ever been that young, that carefree? The joy she took in them was cut with heartache: How long could their innocence last? What would happen when they found out there was no Santa Claus, that their parents were mortal, that tragedy was inevitable and nobody—nobody—would be spared?

  God, Sherry thought later, as she wiped down the sticky tables after the rush, I sound like some ancient crone. Some one-eyed witch from a Greek myth, sitting in my cave, shaking my head at the coming doom. She glanced over at Meghan, using a waffle cone as a microphone as she crooned along to some tacky love song, and gave her a tick of a smile.

  How were they the same age? How was that even possible?

  Hey, Megs, guess what? I used to live in a cult, but then we left, and so they cut my mom’s head off and kidnapped me, but then my dad broke out of prison and ate like this magic human heart and fucking killed everybody—oh, except for the psychotic rapist who kidnapped me; I stabbed him to death myself. Yeah, it was awesome. So, like, how was your summer?

  Fuck. My. Life.

  “I’m taking a smoke break,” Sherry called. Meghan gave her a thumbs-up without breaking character, arching her back as she hit the song’s pièce de résistance high note. Sherry grabbed her purse from her locker, then stepped past the storage freezer and through the back door, into the heat and quiet. There was nothing back here but Dumpsters, nothing to hear but muted traffic and the low thrum of refrigeration.

  She pulled out her kit, ground the hitter until the tip was packed, lifted it to her lips. Sparked the herb and inhaled with all her strength, wanting to fill her lungs and feel the world lose focus.

  Aaaaah. She closed her eyes, savored the float.

  “And just what do you think you’re doing, miss?”

  Oh, fuck.

  Her eyes popped open, and Sherry grinned. Alex was walking toward her, hands jammed into the front pockets of his slim-cut jeans, orange T-shirt fluttering in the slight breeze, gravel crunching beneath his perfectly worn cowboy boots. God, he was beautiful. The way he moved: a careless, confident, unspeakably masculine saunter. The way one thick lock of black hair broke free of the short ponytail and framed his face. The two days of stubble on his cheeks, the light in his brown eyes, the glow of his olive skin.

  He didn’t say anything more, just came straight up and kissed her like Sherry was the only thing that mattered in the world. His hands slid over her waist, up her forearms, back down. And then Alex was unfurling her palm, finding the hitter and the lighter stashed there. When his lips left hers, they locked around the pipe. He flicked the lighter, pulled until the load was ash, exhaled out the side of his mouth.

  “Hi, baby,” he said.

  “Hello.” She wanted to kiss him again, taste the smoke on his tongue. “Nice entrance.”

  She took the hitter, packed it again, and handed it back. “How’s your day going?”

  He smiled, the lighter frozen halfway to his mouth. “My day started the second I saw you.”

  By the time they cashed the load, Sherry was soaring and work was a distant thing, a virtual impossibility.

  “Going back in there right now seems like a form of torture,” she said, leaning back against the warm metal fire door.

  Listen to me, she thought suddenly, the epiphany blooming like a flower. Torture. I’ve been tortured. And here I am applying the word to scooping ice cream. If I wasn’t me, I’d be fucking offended. But I guess we all just go on. Maybe that’s a beautiful thing. Maybe that’s, like, the human condition.

  Wow, I’m really freaking baked right now.

  “So don’t,” said Alex, snapping Sherry out of her reverie.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t go back.” He took her hand. “Let’s get out of here. Go watch the sunset. What do you say?”

  She goggled at him. “I’ll get fired.”

  He waved her off. “Aaah, Meghan will cover for you. It’s only a couple hours. You want me to sweet-talk her for you?” He waggled his eyebrows, and Sherry laughed.

  “No way. I’m not letting you flirt with her. I’ll ask her myself.”

  Five minutes later they were in his car, the town shrinking behind them and the open road ahead.

  “Where are we going?” Sherry asked idly, as the sagebrush flew by, a light green blur, and the deepening blue sky held steady above. A slivery, silvery moon had already snuck out, ahead of the sunset.

  “One of my favorite spots. You’ll see.”

  That was enough for Sherry. Alex lay his hand on the seat between them, palm up, and she dropped hers atop it, interlaced their fingers.

  “As far as I’m concerned, we don’t ever have to come back.”

  He glanced over sharply, and Sherry felt a stab of panic. Too much? Too needy/clingy/desperate?

  But all he said was, “Why don’t you tell your parents you’re staying over at a friend’s tonight?”

  Sherry felt her face flush—at the suggestion and at the word parents, a reminder of just how little Alex knew about her, how completely new and fresh and unbesmirched she was with him.

  “Okay.” She slipped her phone from her bag, texted Ruth, and then switched the thing off, in case the reply wasn’t to her liking.

  “I’m all yours,” she said, and slid toward him. Alex lifted his arm, and she snuggled in beneath.

  “This car is so awesome. I feel like we’re about to go to a drive-in movie, or a, I dunno, like a sock hop or something. Like we’re living in simpler times. Is that stupid?”

  “Not at all, baby. That’s why I bought it,” Alex said. “It’s a classic.”

  He spun the wheel, and they banked left, up a snaky little road Sherry never would have noticed and into the hills.

  “What is a sock hop, anyway?” she asked.

  “You got me.”

  The climb was long and steady, and before Sherry knew it, they were cresting the top of the mountain—or hill, rather; it was more like a really tall hill—and looking down at the sumptuous view below: the glittering lights of the town, as sunset descended upon it in concentric bands of orange, pink, and blue.

  Theirs was the only car, though the dirt lot had room for eight or ten. Alex pulled right up to the edge, so close to the sloping hillside that Sherry clutched at his forearm in half-manufactured fear.

  “This is the best way,” he explained, cutting the engine and rolling up his window against the slight chill. “It feels almost like we’re floating above it, right?”

  “Totally. You want some more of this?” She rolled up her window and waved the one-hitter at him.

  “I’ll roll us a proper joint. That’s what they smoke at the sock hops, I’m pretty sure.”

  He slid a pack of Zig-Zags from his pocket, flipped them across his knuck
les, and in about twenty seconds, the pinner was ready to smoke. He handed it to Sherry, and she stared at it with trepidation for a moment, already plenty high.

  Fuck it. You could always get higher. And anyway, Alex would take care of her. For the first time she could remember, she felt cocooned, safe. There was something about him—a calm, a confidence, a manner—that put her at ease, made her want to relinquish control. Maybe she needed to feel that way so badly she was projecting those qualities on him—but no, that was the old Sherry’s way of thinking, the scarred, scared Sherry, the one she refused to be anymore. Alex was real. This was real.

  This was her life, and it was just beginning.

  She took a pull, passed, then leaned back against the door to watch his pillowy lips pinch tight around the joint.

  Instead, Alex parked it between his scissored fingers and leaned in for a kiss. Sherry pulled him to her, sliding down until her head rested on the seat and she had a clear view of the stars.

  “Hey there,” he murmured, kissing his way down her neck. Sherry arched her back and ran her fingers through his hair, feeling all her concerns evaporate like sweat from skin and float off toward the new night stars.

  The sound of shattering glass put an end to that. They scrambled away, Alex shielding her body with his own, pressing her against the passenger door.

  A hulking man stood by the driver’s door, fist webbed in blood, face cloaked in shadow. What was left of the window collapsed into diamond-sized bits and fell like sand in the wind.

  Oh, shit.

  “What the fuck, Dad?”

  He’s lost it, was her first thought. He’s lost it, and he’s capable of anything.

  Stay calm, Sherry. He loves you. Find his eyes. Talk him down.

  “Dad, this is my boyfriend. His name is Alex. I’m fine. Nothing is wrong.”

  “Get out of the car, Sherry.” He spoke low, through gritted teeth.

  She threw an arm around Alex, pulled him to her. “No, Dad. You get out of here. You’re acting crazy right now.”

  Her father lunged forward, his arm like a python, grabbed Alex by the ankle, and pulled him halfway out of the car.

  “Get out right now, Sherry, or I’ll break his neck. Do it!”

  “Okay—okay! Just take it easy.” She threw her weight against the door and stepped into the cool night air, onto legs like melting Popsicles. “I’m out. I’m out. Just—” Words failed her, and she lifted both palms in a steady, steady sign.

  “Come here,” he demanded, pointing at the ground beside his feet.

  “Not until you let him go.” They eyed each other for a moment across the car, and then Alex found his voice.

  “Hey, look, this is obviously some kind of misunderstanding, okay? Can we just—Mr. Galvan, sir, can we just talk?”

  Sherry’s father tightened his vise hold on Alex’s ankle, and he howled in pain.

  “You told him my last name?” he demanded, eyes darting back to Sherry as Alex continued to thrash. “Huh? Why would you?”

  He turned his attention back to Alex. “How the fuck do you know my name? Who sent you, motherfucker?”

  “Stop it!” Sherry screamed, at the top of her lungs. “You’re fucking paranoid! Just stop!”

  Alex was scrabbling at the seat, trying to pull himself up. He bent double, got a hand on Jess’s, tried to break the grip.

  Bad move. Jess swatted him across the face with an open hand, and the top half of Alex’s body disappeared beneath the seat.

  “Alex!” Sherry’s legs had come back into focus now, and she ran at her father.

  The sound of a gunshot brought her up short.

  It came from inside the car. Alex had pulled a revolver from the glove box, it seemed like. Fired a warning shot into the air.

  Or else—

  No. Warning shot. It had to be.

  Sherry’s father was nowhere to be seen. He’d dropped flat, probably, at the sight of the gun.

  “Alex!” she shouted. “Dad! Both of you, st—”

  She never finished the thought.

  Her father was on his feet, he was in back of the car, he was bending, grabbing at the bumper, the undercarriage, the muscles of his neck and thighs and biceps straining against his clothes—

  “No!”

  She was too late. The burgundy-over-tan GTO flipped through the air and down the hillside. The rear bumper landed first, a hundred and eighty degrees later, with a sickening, metallic crash, and the vehicle only picked up speed from there—became a blur, a series of horrible crunching noises.

  Became wreckage.

  Became fire.

  Became death.

  Sherry crumpled to the ground, her body racked with sobs, the world gone black around her. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe—and then all she could do was breathe, fast and ragged, and then she was on her feet, flying at Galvan, a frenzy of punches and kicks, saltwater and fury.

  She might as well have been attacking a brick wall. He stood perfectly still, and took it—but no, he didn’t take it. Her father didn’t even seem to notice.

  “You monster!” she screamed, clawing at his face, nails drawing blood from his cheek. “You insane fucking psychopath!”

  He said nothing. Did nothing. His eyes were unfocused, vacant.

  She stepped back, panting, scared for her own life now. This man was no one’s father, no one’s son, nobody’s friend. He was a shell, a ghoul, something to fear and loathe. He—

  “Shut the fuck up!” Galvan bellowed, fists clenched, head lifted to the night sky. “Just shut the fuck up!”

  And then he looked at her, and he was Jess Galvan again. Desperate, haunted, confused Jess Galvan, who would do anything for her, who already had, who needed her to understand why he’d done this.

  But no.

  Just no.

  “Sherry—”

  He opened his arms, body already pleading before his brain had found the words.

  “Stay away from me!” She scrambled farther away, down into the underbrush. Where she could see the flames, licking at the carcass of the car.

  “He was going to hurt you. It was all some kind of—”

  “Stop it!” The tears were hot, so hot they burned. “You’re a fucking murderer! Stay the fuck away!”

  He fell silent, and Sherry took another step backward, the brambles biting at her thighs.

  Her bag was still slung over her shoulder. She felt around inside, closed her hand around her phone, turned it on and stared into the glow. Dialed Nichols’s cell and brought it to her ear and locked eyes with her father as it rang.

  “What are you doing?” he said. “Put it away, Sherry. Just give me one minute to explain. That’s all I ask.”

  Nichols picked up. “Sherry? Where are you?”

  “Something’s happened,” she heard herself say. “My father, he— my boyfriend’s dead. You’ve got to get over here.”

  Galvan held her gaze a moment longer, his face contorted in pure misery, and for a split second Sherry doubted all she’d seen.

  Then her father turned and ran.

  CHAPTER 11

  At the height of the empire, when Izel Notchi Icnoyotl had lived in light and splendor, men said there was a special place in hell reserved for those who offered false counsel. And while he had not intended to betray Cualli, Izel’s words had wrought ruin—of the man and the world, and perhaps the universe—and he had no doubt that when this life concluded, damnation would be his reward.

  If anybody was minding the store, anyway. If the thirteen heavens, the nine underworlds, had not simply ceased to be. Or perhaps they stood abandoned, forsaken like the toy blocks of a child called to dinner, and of no greater importance.

  There was very little evidence to suggest that the gods had not done exactly as they’d said they would and left the world to destroy itself at its own pace. They were someplace else now—some other dimension, distant, invisible and unknowable—fucking one another and playing some new sadistic game on some new
terrestrial board.

  Could Izel have prevented calamity? Would Cualli have listened if Izel had found the courage to tell the priest to turn his back on the god he’d pledged to serve?

  On madness?

  On duty?

  On power?

  On divinity?

  Perhaps not. But the opportunity had been his, and his alone, and he had failed to seize it.

  Failed them all.

  At the very least, Izel was complicit in the Great Disordering, the casting off of grace and glory and the birth of an Age of Chaos from which the world had not recovered.

  That day was seared into his memory, undimmed by the centuries he’d spent reflecting on it.

  The blazing sunlight. The temple’s endless chiseled quartz. The plaza, brimming with the empire’s elite, gathered to witness the birth of a dynasty.

  The ceremony had ended, and Cualli and Chacanza had descended the steps, arm in arm, husband and wife, to accept benedictions and blessings, sincere and otherwise.

  Izel followed in their wake, troubled by the dread he’d seen in his friend’s eyes, the drop of blood Cualli’s nails had drawn from his own palm. Something was amiss, and he resolved to stay close, to give the priest every chance to confide the problem. Nothing should trouble him on this day—and certainly, whatever it was must not be permitted to vex Chacanza. Her mind and body must be preserved in a state of perfect tranquility, absolute equilibrium, so that her womb would welcome and nurture new life later tonight.

  That, too, was part of the ceremony. An immediate pregnancy would confirm the favor of the gods, the auspicious nature of the union. And it was well known that a woman who conceived on the night of her wedding brought forth a male heir.

  Izel’s chance came an hour later, the banquet under way, the guests lazy with opulence, sun, copious draughts of the liquor known as pulque.

  Cualli’s skin looked papery and gray, and he had scarcely eaten. The goblet in his hand never met his lips.

  He rose from his seat, kissed his bride, and strode toward the temple’s lowest entrance—a pauper’s door intended for supplicants and slaves. Izel found him just inside, crouched against the cool stone wall, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed.