The Wizards 2: Wizard at Work Page 2
He drove north and arrived home by late afternoon, depression put aside.
For now.
#
Another murder was reported in Ciudad Juarez that night. Bodies hanged from bridges, decapitations, even burning victims alive, these things the city had learned to take in stride as gang warred with gang. The usual victims came from the bottom of the gang hierarchy, soldiers in the wars who could be sacrificed without worry by those at the upper levels. There were always more of the gang-soldiers to be found. Money from the drugs, sold to the norteamericanos, and poverty among young Mexicans ensured that recruits would not be hard to find.
It was different this time. Even jaded Mexicans, those who still survived in a city where gang-fights and the unsolved murders of young women had become commonplace events, felt a sense of shock.
This victim, unusually, was a senior member of the Zeta Cartel. No stranger to violence, he had trained at the US Army’s School of the Americas, then attended an advanced course for selected soldiers conducted by American Special Operations forces.
The courses had been intended to help Latin American military leaders combat guerillas and drug gangs; instead, many of the graduates had turned the training around, using it to make cartel drug operations and anti-government efforts more effective.
None of that training had helped the victim, however, nor had he been able to use the weapons he carried. They were still present on the corpse, unfired.
Like five others before him, he had been literally ripped apart. Blood, body parts, all were scattered around the hotel room where he'd reportedly gone to meet another of the young women who found it exciting to mingle with drug gangsters.
These men were celebrities in Mexico! Songwriters and musicians even sang songs celebrating their activities and lifestyle! Their braggadocio, swagger, and ready money attracted the young women.
The graffiti had begun to change along the streets of Juarez. Now, there was often a line drawing appearing among the stylized letters left by the taggers. It consisted of a spare outline drawing of an animal's head, sometimes with the pointed ears upright, sometimes laid back. The eyes were mere slits, denoted by single slightly-curved lines. There was a black triangular nose that suggested dog ancestry and improbably long, sharp teeth below that.
Well-educated Mexicans knew that the murders were human caused. Some speculated that whoever was slaughtering the gangsters was engaging in counter-terror, activities designed to convince the drug gangs to leave, to find a less-dangerous place to set up their operations.
But not all Mexicans were well educated.
The sketch was sometimes labeled nowadays. People whispered the name and looked over their shoulder at the quick chill of fear the image caused.
Chupacabra; the legendary 'goat-sucker' had found a new taste he liked.
This time he craved the taste of human blood, especially the blood of drug bosses.
Chapter Two
“I'm glad you're back, T. I was worried about you. I'm worried about that fire up the canyon too; if the wind changes, we’re in the path of the fire. We might not have time to do anything except run. There are only the two directions we can go, south toward San Ysidro or north toward Los Alamos. I hope at least one of those directions is open. Anyway, I got a phone call from a woman on the village phone tree while you were out. She was notifying people that they might have to run, and some are saying we need to evacuate now.”
“I just had some issues I needed to work out, Shezzie. I went for a long drive and did some thinking. I'm all right now. Did you pass the phone tree message along?”
“I did. I imagine everyone either knew already or they know by now. Some didn't answer, so I think they may already have gone.
“Anyway, did you decide what you're going to do about Ray's proposal?”
“I’m going to accept it. He can be the public face, I can work on investigations in the background. I can't afford to attract attention to myself.”
He thought for a moment. “I need to work on my TP Talent too, especially the part involving people I've never met. That's very iffy; I can pick up a word in ten, sometimes a little more, but I almost never catch a complete thought.”
“I understand what you mean. I pick up anywhere from a third to half of the words. I think I started out stronger in this Talent field, after Surfer got me started, and I've improved a lot since then. Some of the improvement has come from melding my mind with yours, I’m convinced of that.”
“I've improved too, Shezzie. Same reason, I think, except for the psychokinetics, the PK. That's considerably stronger now, but I think it’s mostly from practice.”
He saw no reason to tell her how much stronger he was. Anyway, he would also need to work on improving his fine control while handling heavy weights. He had good control when lifting or moving light objects, but as with that boulder in the Franklin Mountains north of El Paso, he had struggled to put it exactly where he wanted. He’d also found it difficult to move it around so that the flatter side was in position. Still, he’d accomplished what he wanted, finally easing the massive weight to a resting spot atop the other boulder. Improving his skill was important; lack of control when dealing with something weighing several tons could be dangerous.
“Have you seen a weather report, T? Maybe, if you were listening to the radio while you were driving--”
“I didn't pay any attention. I was trying to get my mind around all that's happened; I just hope the nightmares quit soon. The depression seems to be gone, at least for now. Want to go out to dinner tonight?”
“We could. Maybe just go to the restaurant in Jemez Springs. I don't want to drive as far as Albuquerque or Los Alamos now, not until that fire is contained. Santa Fe is even farther away.”
“Well, that restaurant is more vegan than I like, but I'm OK with it for tonight. I think I'll get some tools out, see about clearing away the brush up the canyon in case the fire does come this way. Can't hurt, right?”
T took two bottles of water from the fridge, collected his work gloves, and unlocked the shed behind their cabin. He selected a shovel and an axe and briefly considered the chainsaw, but decided it could wait. In any case, he had something else in mind.
He could see smoke farther up-slope from the canyon, perhaps six miles or more in the distance. Carrying his supplies, T walked up the canyon toward the fire.
#
Ray:
I decided to head north and see how T and Shezzie were doing.
We dropped the comm link and I drove north, I-10 to Las Cruces, then I-25 to Bernalillo. From there it was west on NM 505, then up NM 4 from the turnoff at San Ysidro.
Had it worked out for them, the trip to mend their relationship? T needed it more than Shezzie, I thought. He needed someone he could feel close to. We were friends, he and I, but it wasn’t the same thing.
I'd seen a lot of strength from T when that roof fell in on us. He'd dropped his protective bubble, then simply lifted the heavy engineered structural member away. It had been lying across the bubble I was still maintaining to protect myself; I’d been afraid to collapse the bubble. That structural frame member had clearly weighed several hundred pounds, enough to kill or injure me if it fell. He'd then lifted me and set me down outside the worst of the destruction. I had collapsed my bubble and lifted him to safety in turn. As soon as we were out of the wrecked house, we lost no time in leaving.
There had been no outcry from police or neighbors; perhaps gang members blew up their houses all the time. Weren't meth houses prone to exploding? I had no idea.
I knew T had symptoms of
PTSD. I didn't know how severe they were, other than that he was sometimes depressed and had nightmares. Well, what we'd done to those gang members would give anyone nightmares! I didn't know what he'd done during the time he was serving in the Rockpile, other than he'd been in combat. PTSD, coupled with strong PK Talent--I didn't like the thought of that. If T needed my help, I would do everything I could for him.
I had no idea of what to do if he started to lose it. I didn't even know if there was anything I could do. I was getting stronger with practice, but I suspected that T was far stronger than I was. I might have been able to lift that frame member, but T had handled it effortlessly.
#
I checked in with Shezzie as soon as I arrived. She looked good, relaxed from the trip. I asked about T.
“I was worried for a while, Ray, but I think he's snapped out of the depression at least. He's up the canyon cutting brush. Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, a soda perhaps?”
“I had a soda while I was driving up here. I think I'll go see if I can help T.”
“Go ahead and comm him. I'm not sure how far up he is.”
I walked around the back and looked up the canyon. The smoke seemed to be growing up on top of the canyon rim, billowing higher even as I watched. I hoped the wind up there was less than what it was down here. It wasn't strong but it was noticeable, and any wind is not helpful in fighting a wildfire. Anyway it was blowing up the canyon toward the fire. That would force the fire to turn back toward where it had already burned over and hopefully starve it of fuel.
Shezzie gave me the water bottles and I headed for where T was working. The canyon itself was perhaps a half-mile wide at the lower end. It had shallow, gently sloping sides this far down. Vegetation wasn’t thick, mostly brush and scattered scrubby trees here. Further up into the mountainside, the canyon narrowed to perhaps a hundred yards in width and the sides got steeper and higher.
I began to see where T had been working after I’d gone a short distance up the canyon. It looked like he had simply dug out the brush and small trees; it didn't seem like there was enough vegetation left to sustain a fire, although there was still a layer of fallen leaves and bark on the ground. I could see a few clumps of grass too, but still not enough to worry about. I kept going and finally spotted T where I expected, about halfway up the canyon wall.
He was looking up at a ponderosa pine, a huge tree that had found a pocket in the rock. The space held enough soil, blown in over the years, to give the tree room to grow. It was a hundred feet tall now, maybe more, and leaned slightly away from the wall rather than growing straight up. I probably had a better view of the big tree than T did, since he was below it and looking up at the branches.
I looked at the tree, visualizing how much of a cut T would need to make, and where. A path of escape might be more of a problem because there was little surface to stand on. Still, we had something other tree-cutters didn't have. T would have thought of it, the bubble as a means of escape if the tree fell wrong.
T began chopping a notch in the downhill side where the tree leaned away from the rock. He took smooth, even swings that didn't seem very powerful but that nevertheless popped huge chips free. The notch steadily advanced, six inches deep, then about nine inches, with the top and bottom of the V-shaped sides angled in about forty-five degrees.
Neither of us saw it happening, but the tree had leaned imperceptibly further away from the rock. We hadn’t been watching the crown, only the section of trunk where T was working. That slight lean had overbalanced the tree enough to put enormous pressure on the root system. The roots had never been very deep or extensive because of the small pocket of dirt the tree had grown in.
T took another swing. There was a cracking noise when the axe hit, a plop where the chip joined others on the ground, and then a small popping sound. I looked at the notch but saw nothing happening. The popping came again, louder, and this time it came from the ground beneath the tree. I glanced down and the earth around the base of the trunk was bulging. The rocks around the roots shifted and made a grinding sound.
And froze.
He was standing calmly, looking up at the tree as it twisted on its base.
The tree leaned farther from the hillside as the weaker roots broke free.
There was no bubble protecting T. His feet rested on the ground as the tree, several tons of it, leaned over him. The axe was gone, dropped somewhere. I saw that much before I rolled away down the slope, ahead of the falling tree. It hadn’t occurred to me that the bubble would form on a slope. Now I had no control over where it would take me.
I lost sight of him as I tumbled, my last view of T standing there and just looking up.
The fear had come, not for myself but for T. Had he simply decided to let this end now, end the PTSD and the nightmares by letting the tree do the job that the Mujahedeen had been unable to do?
Survivor's guilt often caused other vets to suicide, I knew that. Was this T's way of ending the torment?
Shit, shit, shit...what would I tell Shezzie? I was sweating by the time I stopped the rolling bubble, now level with the canyon floor. I knew the tree wouldn't slide this far, so I shifted my weight until I could stand upright. I dropped the bubble, straightened up, and looked uphill at the fallen pine.
I was stunned. I had been sure he was directly under that trunk when it fell.
I looked around. There were two largish rocks, one atop the other. I wondered how they’d come to be that way. The shovel was leaning against them, so I picked it up and took a last look at the rocks. Something about them bothered me, but I didn't know what it was. I shouldered the shovel and joined T where he had come downhill with his axe.
We stashed the tools in a shed behind the cabin. T carefully brushed the dirt away from both, spritzed them with WD-40, then hung them from pegs in the shed’s wall.
Shezz
ie had coffee ready by the time we entered the cabin.
I was still shaking. I didn't know how T could have escaped. The tree had to have weighed several tons, and it was twisting as the roots gave way. It could have fallen either way, could have snapped around and whipped across right where T was standing. And yet, when I'd seen him, he'd been calmly standing. He’d looked perfectly cool, as if a giant tree fell toward him every day.
It simply made no sense. He knew about the bubble, he was faster than I was at forming it, and yet he hadn't bothered?
I finally gave up. There were no answers, just worry.
#
We discussed the plans for forming a consulting company and hiring out to police departments around the southwest. We could investigate things that official police officers couldn't and be safe while doing it. Hopefully, they had funds to pay us.
They would deal directly with me and I could pass the information to T for him to look into. Shezzie might help too, but she had other plans for now. Once we established a track record, we could expect more calls from other police departments. In the meantime, we had enough money to live in reasonable comfort.
“You might want to look at the paper, T. I brought it from El Paso for you, the Times and El Diario too. That one's in Spanish but it has more pictures. It's happened again, across the river in Juarez; two of the drug chiefs ran into whatever killed the others. That story is on page one. They're calling it the same thing you did, El Chupacabra. There are cartoon figures drawn on walls all over Juarez now, and the gangs have mostly stopped killing each other.
“The newspaper thinks they're forted up, and they might be thinking about making peace with each other until this is over. The Army is still patrolling Juarez, but they're not finding much at the moment. The gang war continues in some other places. Parral and Chihuahua City have had a lot of trouble, Cuauhtémoc too, but things are quiet in Juarez. People are on the streets again.”