"Sí."

El scooted onto the bed. His hands ghosted over Sands' hair, then down across his bare shoulder. Sands shuddered, realizing his was naked except for various bandages. He let El draw him close and turned until his face rested against the folds of the Mariachi's soft shirt and he could hear his heartbeat. He brought his hand up and caught a handful of cloth, clutching it tightly. He was shaking. El pulled the bedding closer around Sands and then ran his hand up and down between Sands' shoulder blades. Over and over, until Sands was limp and still.

"I wanted company in hell, I think," El whispered. Sands didn't know if the man understood that he was still awake or not. "We are both dead, now."

"Oh," Sands muttered. "That makes sense."

El stilled, not even breathing, his hand unmoving on Sands' back. Finally Sands lifted his face toward El's unseen countenance. "Did I thank you?"

"No."

Sands snorted and rolled away. "Well, don't expect me to, shitwit." He clumsily scooted up to sit shoulder to shoulder with El. Unconsciously, he stroked his fingers over the rough weave of the cheap sheets, wondering if they were white or dingy. He would never, ever know.

Fuck, he hurt.

His hair was falling over his face, tickling against his cheeks and jaw, catching in his stubble. Maybe he would grow a beard, save himself the trouble of shaving. He thought of food getting caught in a beard and shuddered at the thought of looking that fucking pathetic. No beard.

Cautiously, he pushed his hair away from his face. It was greasy and made him want to wash it, to stand in a shower of hot water until he'd scrubbed Mexico off him and could forget, could pretend his eyes were just closed and not gone.

He fingered the gauze bandages wrapped over his eyes like a blindfold.

"Leave those alone," El commanded.

Sands curled his fingers into a fist. He wanted to ignore the man and rip the bandages away. Somewhere in his head there was still a wild hope that if he did, he would find himself able to see again.

Slowly, he lowered his hand into his lap and opened his fist.

His head drooped and his shoulders slumped.

El got off the bed and jingled off somewhere. Sands didn't care. Didn't pay any attention when the man came back, nor to the clink of a dish being set down on a stand by the bed. El sat down on the bed's edge again. A hand picked up Sands' and wrapped it around a glass. His fingers slipped against cool condensation and El steadied his hand.

"Drink."

Shakily, Sands lifted the glass and took a cautious sip. Cool water, the most delicious he'd ever tasted, touched parched lips and washed over his tongue and down his aching throat. Helplessly, he gulped more down, losing a trickle out of the corner of his mouth. El pulled the glass back.

"Slowly. Slowly."

Sands wanted to protest, but the cold water had hit his empty stomach like a lead weight. It threatened to come up again. He breathed hard through his nose and dry swallowed until it settled. His whole body was shaking again, he realized in disgust.

He managed to nod.

El tightened his fingers around the glass, then let go once Sands was holding it steadily.

"You need to eat something."

Sands tried another, small sip of water, let it soak into the dry tissues in his mouth and slowly warm before he swallowed. When his stomach didn't threaten outright rebellion, he nodded.

"Okay."

***
El watched unguarded expressions flash across Sands' face, amazed at how much he could see without ever looking into the man's eyes. Sands had been a handsome man, almost pretty, El remembered from their single face to face meeting. A man full of secret laughter, the Hanged Man smiling as he turned everything inside out and upside down, and danger had shimmered off his surprising stillness. Now, he was bleached bone, drawn fine and sharp and still unpredictable, somehow as beautiful as he was brittle. Vulnerable.

Aware of that vulnerability, too, and frightened by it, El saw. His own stomach rolled at the prospect of waking, blind and tied. Sands had been like a trapped bird, beating and breaking his wings against the cage, wild to fly when he never would again.

El slowly and carefully fed Sands a small, plain meal, worried by how little the man would eat. Finally, he peeled another orange and fed the plump sections to Sands with his fingers. Sands silently took each piece and licked the juices from El's fingertips with a delicate pink tongue tip. El shuddered at the sensation; it was the most intimate touch he'd felt since Carolina's death.

Sands felt it and cocked his head. "El?"

"Sí?"

"Just making sure you're still there."

Sands was lying. He had to feel El's presence on the bed. But his silence might have disturbed the blind man. He summoned an almost smile and then realized it meant nothing to Sands, who could not see it.

"Still here," El murmured instead.

Sands ran his hand over the coverlet until he came to El's thigh. He hesitated, then skated his palm up. Unintentional or not, it felt like a caress, and El burned where he was touched. He grabbed Sands' hand and lifted it. Sands immediately twined his fingers into El's, hanging on so tight his knuckles shone white.

"The doctor left antibiotics," he said. "You need to take them."

He felt the flinch run through Sands at the word doctor. He wondered briefly before making the connection. Guevara.

"I don't suppose he left any kick-ass drugs, because - " Sands swallowed hard but forced the last words out and gestured at his bandaged eyes, " - this really, really is starting to hurt."

"He left painkillers," El said. "I'll get them for you." He let go of Sands' hand as though it was a burning coal.

"Yeah," Sands muttered flatly, "you do that."

El returned with the vials of painkillers and antibiotics and slid the pills into Sands' palm, then handed him the glass of water again. Sands clenched his hand on the medication, then silently swallowed all of it down. He shoved the glass in El's direction, almost spilling the rest of its contents, and when El had it, slid down in the bed and curled in on himself again.

El set the glass a safe few inches back on the nightstand and left it. He took the medication away, not sure if Sands would choose such an escape, but not willing to give him the chance. Afterward, he went back to the chair on the balcony and the guitar he'd left leaning against the rail. He picked it up and began picking out a slow melody.

He was irritatingly aware of Sands lying on the bed, facing him. He was sure the man was awake, imagining the fierce falcon's gaze Sands would have trained on him in a some other nightmare. Sands was too still. Neither of them spoke though and El went on playing the old tune.

It was the one his brother had taught him.

He wondered if Sands remembered it. But something, some lessening of tension in the air made him look up and listen. Sands' breath came evenly and he'd uncoiled. One hand flung out over the pale yellow sheets, half open. He had gone to sleep.

***
Sands drifted in and out of sleep, still barely able to discern any difference between the two. He rose closer to the surface as evening set in, feeling the air change. The sun no longer touched him. Cool, faintly moister air slid into the room through the window. He pulled the sheet and blanket higher.

"Awake?" El asked.

"Yes," Sands said tiredly. He listened, identifying the sounds. He could find El by the chains chiming quietly. He heard something set down with a soft thud. Sands frowned and decided: guitar case. Faint hinge squeak and then a latch being closed teased at him, until Sands identified the sounds, as a balcony door being shut. The air went stiller in the room and began to warm. Boot soles on bare wood was El walking to the bed.

Twin thuds.

Boots.

Soft rustling sounds of cloth made Sands' frown.

"What are you doing?"

"There's only one bed," El said calmly.

"Oh, golly, that's just great," he muttered, "You just better not get any ideas," but the Mariachi ignored him and stretched out with a soft chime of chains. Sands listened in absurd, growing disgust as El settled into the bed with a sigh and swiftly fell asleep. He'd never gone to sleep so easily in his life. With a sigh, he rolled his head on the rather flat pillow. The bastard didn't even snore. The soft rhythm of his breathing was rather soothing though, Sands decided sleepily. He fell asleep listening to it, curling closer to the body warmth and human presence without realizing it.

***
Despite himself, Sands grew used to sharing the bed with El. The Mariachi didn't thrash around and didn't object to waking up with Sands plastered next to him. The first morning Sands had been freaking right out, but El had just shrugged and rose, coming back later with coffee and breakfast that he insisted Sands eat. Nothing was said.

The third day after he woke - which he gathered was about a week after El Día de los Muertos - El took away the breakfast dishes and returned with Sands' clothes. He tossed the bundle on the bed and dropped the boots on the floor beside it.

"We need to leave now," El said. "We've been here too long."

Sands felt through the clothes and awkwardly began to dress. It was different without sight. The clothes felt right, though, and he wondered if they were his. Found the answer when his fingers grazed a darned hole in the arm of the shirt. Bullet hole. Matched the one in his arm. He wondered if El did the sewing and grinned to himself. When he'd dressed and was sitting on the edge of the bed, he turned his head toward where he could hear El standing and breathing and asked hopefully, "Guns?"

El snorted and walked over. Body-warmed metal pressed into Sands' hand. He examined it with his fingers. Small, a twenty-two, a familiar weight, like, if not the same, as the one he had carried down his pants. He checked to make sure it was loaded, thoughtfully keeping the muzzle aimed at the floor - but not at his feet. Hell, even sighted guys blew their boots off if they got careless, he knew. Heard a sound of approval from the Mariachi as he double checked the safety by touch and slid the gun into his coat pocket.

Then El's hand was at his elbow, guiding him to his feet and toward the door, Sands supposed. He doubted El had nursed him this far to push him over the edge of the balcony.

Yep, the door.

"Stairs," El said economically at one point.

He had to feel his way down, lowering his boot slowly, but after the first step he knew the height of the steps and moved not unconfidently.

"Last three steps," El told him, saving him from trying to step through the floor. El wasn't bad at this, not condescending, just providing the information Sands didn't have eyes to catch. He wasn't treating Sands like they had scooped out his brains along with his eyes, at least.

He shadowed along beside El, listening to the other man's steps, the chimes on his pants making an excellent guide, stopped when El stopped, a step behind him. A small thud was the guitar case settling on the floor briefly.

"Where are we going?" Sands asked, balking.

El froze for a second, but then recovered.

"Down the stairs, out the front, then the curb. The car's on the left," El said and opened the door. Sands was right behind him, resisting the urge to reach forward and curl his hand into El's waistband. Instead he tucked it in his jacket pocket and curled his fingers around the .22.

Happiness was a warm gun.

The Strange Face of Love
Days on the road brought them to Villa Perdidos, late in the honeyed air of last light. Long black shadows stretched eastward. Dogs and children were running home for dinner; the scent of cooking was on the subtly cooler breeze that heralded dusk. The villagers still in the square were quiet, watching with dark, questioning eyes as El parked the battered convertible in front of the old monastery. Maybe they sensed the death that seemed to cling to him like a pall of invisible smoke.

They would not have expected to see him again. Not after Cucuy drove him away, holding a guitar and under a dozen guns, while the guitar-maker's blood stained the dusty stones of the market square.

El stared back at them, half in defiance, half in apology.

Sands had been sleeping in the backseat and woke.

"Why are we stopping?"

"We're here."

Sands didn't even sit up. El thought he might be too weak and ill and that worried him. "Here, where?" Sands asked in his light, flat tone that conveyed complete disinterest. He hadn't even lifted his head.

But why would he? El acknowledged. Sands wouldn't see anything.

"My village," El said.

"Guitar Town." Still, the tone was empty and disengaged.

"Sí."

El got out of the car and opened the door behind the driver's. Sands flinched when he touched him, then silently sat up and allowed El to guide him out of the car. El let him lean against the side while he pulled out a duffle bag and the guitar case. When Sands still didn't speak, he cast a worried glance at the man.

Sands had his arms wrapped around himself and his head hanging. The red T-shirt El had bought in one of the towns they'd passed through hung on him, highlighting how thin the man was becoming. Sands never asked to eat and only did when El insisted. With his face half-turned away, the veil of his dark hair concealed the white gauze pads taped over his eye sockets. The long, vulnerable line of sharp jaw, lean tendon and bare neck caught El's eye. Something twisted painfully in him when he looked at Sands too long, something he wished he could blame on the man, but El knew Sands was completely oblivious to this effect.

Sands had never been a fifty peso mariachi fuck.

Sands had become steadily quieter since they left Culiacan. El didn't know how to deal with him. He didn't think Sands would welcome any overt comfort. El wasn't sure he had any comfort to offer. Sands' life had been shattered, just as El's had been. Nothing could make that better. Sands didn't even know what El intended with him. El didn't know himself.

He realized he'd been just standing, staring at Sands, when a scuffed footstep made Sands' head come up. El turned and saw the old man, the priest who had made guitars with his now-dead brother, approaching.

Sands could barely stand on his own, but he half-turned toward the sound and his hand slipped under the long, loose tail of the T-shirt and found the .22 tucked in his waistband at the small of his back. El dropped the duffle in the dirt and took three fast steps to Sands' side. He caught the fine-boned wrist and stopped Sands from drawing the gun.

"Your men killed one man here," he said in a low voice. "You won't kill any more."

Sands' muscles tensed in resistance beneath his hand, but he nodded. El let go after another instant and Sands didn't move. He almost wished Sands would make some snide, defiant remark. He didn't like this new, quiet Sands. He seemed … broken.

"You are home," the old priest said, a sad smile on his face.

"Padre," El acknowledged.

Wise, dark eyes moved from him to Sands and studied the pale figure. His mouth shaped a silent word. Blind? El closed his eyes. Sí.

"Let me help carry your things inside," the old man said.

"Thank you, padre."

El hefted the guitar case himself, though. The padre picked up the dropped duffle. Sands lifted his head and walked beside El. A frown of concentration pulled his fine, dark brows together. El deliberately slowed his stride and walked heavily. He was forced to take Sands' arm when the other man stumbled and almost went down.

Sands didn't draw away or fight him.

The padre had the doors into the old monastery open and waited, his face creased with sadness.

The echoing stone and adobe building was dark and cool inside. Sands immediately began shivering. Their footsteps echoed, louder than El remembered. He guided Sands' faltering progress through the halls back to the room he'd made into his after Carolina and his daughter died.

The bed was there, just as it had been the day Cucuy and his men roared into town, shot a good man, and took him to meet Sands. The blanket on top hadn't even been straightened. A soft haze of dust covered everything. El's hand tightened on Sands elbow abruptly as anger coursed through him. Sands tried to twist away from him and almost fell.

El roughly pushed him down onto the bed. "Stay here," he told Sands. Sands tipped his head at a curious angle, then nodded tiredly and sank down on the bed.

El watched him for a long moment, until Sands' weary, irritated voice startled him.

"Are you going to just stand there forever? Because I can feel you staring."

El set the guitar case down with a thud and stalked out of the room.

Behind him, Sands' light, lilting words floated in the empty room. "A moody mariachi. Perfect. I am in hell."

"You have changed, my son," the padre murmured as El stalked into the main hall where he was waiting. El clenched his fists.

"Sí, padre."

"You are angry now, but not haunted."

El nodded and opened his hands.

He brushed his hair away from his face and found a piece of leather in his jacket pocket to tie it back. He bowed his head. "I destroyed the guitar."

The padre rested a gnarled hand on his arm. "But you are alive now, sí?"

El hesitated, but slowly nodded again.

"Sí."

The numb hollowness that had been his existence since Marquez killed his family and left him for dead had finally closed over. Perhaps he had filled it with his revenge. He was not sorry for killing Marquez. What he had done on the Day of the Dead filled him with satisfaction. Marquez and Barillo would destroy no more lives and the President was alive, the coup a failure.

Lorenzo and Fideo were rich. His lips quirked. He had boxes of money in the trunk of his car too, thanks to their quick thinking. He'd found the money and a note in his hotel room when he'd brought Sands there. He knew it was money Sands had meant to steal and it amused him that now he was using it to care for the man.

Sands …

"Who is he, my son?" the padre asked, as though reading El's thoughts.

How did he explain a man like Sands to this good, kind priest? Sands, who had killed for only his own reasons, who danced along the knife edge of madness, treated his life and others as a game to be played, all of it with the thoughtless cruelty of a child. Sands, who had no guilt or regrets when he killed. Who blithely sought to defy and cheat the cartels and the military. The man who had drawn El back into the world of blood and guns … and life. A man who suffered now, not for the wrongs he'd done, but for trusting and wanting the same things El himself had lost: life, a love, and freedom. The padre would not understand. El didn't think he understood Sands. He wondered if Sands even understood himself.

"A victim of the cartels," he murmured at last. It was the truth, just not all of it. Not enough, said his conscience. Haltingly, he added, "He is … a bad man, padre, but … perhaps not as bad as he wanted me to think."

"So you are helping him," the padre mused, "because you are not sure."

El said, "I am sure that if he dies, then Barillo wins again - even dead."

"He is hurt very badly."

"Yes."

"I will bring the doctor here."

"Tomorrow, padre. Tomorrow."

"I will bring you some food, then."

El was too tired to care much, but he thought of the way Sands' bones had felt beneath his hand, and knew the man needed to eat. "Gracias."

"You are tired, I can see. I will bring enough for your friend, too."

"He is not my friend," El objected.

The padre only smiled and walked out.

El sighed and walked back to the dim bedroom. Sands was curled on the bed, his still booted feet hanging over the edge. Dusk leached the color even from the T-shirt, shaded the slender form in a chiaroscuro of pale and dark. He looked like an exhausted child.

El pulled the boots off and lifted Sands' feet onto the bed. Then he toed off his own boots and stretched out beside the sleeping man. It was instinct to pull Sands close when he shivered.

Nothing more, he told himself.

***
Three days passed after they arrived at Guitar Town. The first one, Sands barely stirred from the bed, too sick and exhausted to even protest when El's padre arrived with a doctor in the morning. He silently tolerated the unknown hands checking the bullet wounds and only fought back briefly when the doctor went to peel away the bandages over his eyes.

He lost it a little then, cursing and trying to tear himself away, until El's hands locked on his shoulders.

"Sands, lie still," El told him in that hot sun and dust voice.

Sands rolled his face away from the doctor's hands, but stilled under El's hands, the gentle weight more soothing than restraining. His panicked breathing slowed, though his heart kept hammering fast and wild. He couldn't control the tremble of horror that fluttered through him, couldn't stop the hopeless protest from escaping him.

"Don't … please."

"Señor, it is necessary to check," the doctor said quietly. "Please hold still."

El took one hand from his shoulder and grasped Sands' chin. He gently turned Sands' face away from the pillow. "It must be done," he murmured. He brushed long strands of hair back from Sands cheek and absently kept stroking. Or maybe not so absently. The slow, repetitive motion gave Sands something to concentrate on as the tape was peeled away from brow and temple and cheekbone. There wasn't any real discomfort yet, but he found it somehow sickening anyway.

Sands tried to breathe steadily and not move. The doctor removed the first pad of gauze, delicately teasing it free from scabbed blood and lymph crusted on his eyelids and eyelashes. The feel of it tugging away made Sands' stomach roll.

A sucked in breath by the doctor told him it wasn't pretty. He gritted his teeth.

"The tearing to the eyelids should have been stitched. There will be scars."

A gurgle of ugly laughter escaped Sands. El sighed.

"Could you just fucking finish it," Sands muttered.

His eyelids were pried open. It felt like a fistful of razor sharp metal shards being ground into his brain. The doctor kept the examination and cleaning quick, but Sands lost track anyway. He was vaguely aware of a new gauze pad being taped over one eye and then the whole process was repeated on the other. This time the pain seemed worse, multiplied by the stabbing ache in his head from the first one. He bit his tongue to hold back the scream rising through him and his mouth flooded with his own blood, the thick salt taste only adding to his nausea.

Cold sweat coated him and he was shaking before the doctor left. El walked the man out. The instant Sands heard them step out of the room, he rolled onto his side, stuffed a corner of the pillow in his mouth, and allowed himself to whimper at the pain. It was too much.

He didn't hear El return. Those already familiar hands were tugging the pillow away and pulling him close the next thing he knew. He obediently swallowed the painkillers El offered him, eager for once to sink into the oblivion they offered him. After that, everything melted into the hollow daze that kept sucking him down, and he didn't wake again until the next day.

Necessity forced him to his feet, stumbling for the door then, battering himself against sharp corners and sudden edges, hands flailing into the emptiness around him when his balance dissolved into the nothingness. Sands wanted to fall down on his knees and crawl. Instead he forced his feet forward, stumbling, noticing the shocking difference as his bare foot left a rough wool rug and touched down on cool tile. He found the door standing open, bruised his hip against the doorknob and snarled curses as he hung onto the jamb and tried to figure which way the bathroom would be.

Left, he decided arbitrarily, and staggered in that direction, brushing his shoulder against the wall and periodically stopping to just lean. Two doors down, he found the object of his search and emptied his complaining bladder with a sigh of relief. He had not wanted to yell for El's help. A little more groping around found the washbasin and he washed his hands slowly. Either there wasn't a towel or he couldn't find it by waving his hands around, so Sands settled for wiping them on his sagging jeans.

He didn't quite make it back to the bedroom, though, and was pathetically grateful when El showed up and helped him the rest of the way. Sleep sucked him down again as soon as he sank down on the bed. He was vaguely aware of El undressing him like a child, but didn't care.

The third day he surfaced to the sound of El's guitar. He listened to the plaintive notes, recognizing the song, and found himself whispering the words without thinking about it. El's music never faltered or Sands would have stopped. Instead, he let his voice strengthen and follow the song to its end.

As the last note faded into silence, Sands cursed himself.

El said, "I did not know you could sing."

"Obviously, because you don't know dick about me," Sands snapped. "And I don't sing."

"Mmn."

El followed the wordless noise by setting the guitar aside - Sands heard that - and walking over to the bed. Hating the feeling of helplessness that went with being flat on his back, especially without sight, Sands dragged himself up. It was an iron bedstead and the bars were cool against the bare skin of his back. He was stark naked again. What the hell was it with the mariachi and undressing him in his sleep?

The back of El's hand pressed against Sands' forehead, startling him. He jerked his head back and knocked it against the bed frame with a painful clunk.

"The fever is gone," El stated.

Come to think of it, he didn't feel like he was being slow roasted for the first time in forever. He did feel drier than a desert, though.

"Well, do you think you could do something about me being thirsty enough to drink the filthy stuff you call water in this country?" he snapped back.

"Get it yourself," El told him shortly.

"Fine. Where?" Sands slid to the edge of the bed and pulled the sheet around him as he wobbled to his feet. "And where the hell are my clothes?"

El wrapped a big hand around his upper arm to steady him. "Your clothes are over here." He guided Sands to a table and set his hand on the folded T-shirt and jeans. "Get dressed and we will eat."

Getting dressed took more energy than Sands wanted to admit. He could feel El watching him, too. Presumably El just wanted to make sure Sands didn't fall over, crack his head open, and bleed all over the rug. It still made Sands remarkably conscious of his body, when he'd never been particularly body shy before.

As he picked up the T-shirt, his fingers brushed something beneath it. Sands stilled, then let himself feel the distinct shape of a gun. He pulled the T-shirt over his head and picked up the gun. Of course, there was a gun, he thought, El wouldn't feel dressed without a gun and so 'clothes' would always include one.

He found the belt and belt holster coiled beside the gun. Even sightless, threading the holster onto the belt and belt into his jeans, came naturally. When he slid the gun into the holster, a sense of relief rolled through him. Even barefoot and blind, he would be able to defend himself.

El strode over to the door and waited as Sands followed him more slowly.

"Right," he said as they stepped into the hallway. He led Sands into a cornmeal-scented kitchen and seated him at a plain table. Sands waited quietly as El prepared a meal for them both after first opening a refrigerator and bringing him a bottle of water. "Here."

Sands twisted the top off and drank. He remembered to take it slowly this time. When he sat the bottle down, he said, "Thanks."

El made an indecipherable sound.

Sands wiggled his toes against the sun-warmed tile floor and tried to think. What did he do next?

He was alive, when he should have - would have - been dead, except for the mariachi. No one, not even Ramirez, knew that.

He wasn't penniless, he had accounts and fallbacks that no one had ever known about, back-up plans he'd put together never believing he'd need them. It might be a little more difficult without his eyes, but he could manage. He had contacts and with money, he could …

He could …

He curled his hand into a fist on the table top.

He could … go back … there wasn't anyone alive except El to say what he'd really been up to after finding out about the coup. There were some ruthless bastards - worse than him even - with the CIA, but they wouldn't have him taken out just because El Presidente hadn't bought it on the Day of the Dead. No one, no one outside his own head, had ever known that he'd guessed El Mariachi wouldn't kill the man. Ajedrez had known he meant to make off with Barillo's pay-off money … but Ajedrez was as dead as the rest of them.

They wouldn't kill him.

Sands dug his nails into his palm.

They'd take one look at what Guevara had done, and once they'd puked their guts out, they'd pity him.

He shook his head sharply.

They'd fucking debrief him until his brains ran out his ears, they'd send him to psychiatrists and trauma counselors and pay to send him somewhere to learn to live with his 'disability', and then they'd pension him off like a used-up whore. Or if he couldn't fake sanity for long enough, if he slipped - and how the hell do you pretend to be sane and stable after having your eyes ripped out? - they'd lock him away somewhere because he was a danger to himself and others.

Which he was and always had been. Sheldon Jeffrey Sands shouldn't be trusted, anyone reading his last psych write-up could have read it between the lines. That was why they'd sent him down to Mexico. You didn't assign assassinating the President of a neighboring country to a good guy, after all.

One way or the other, though, they would get rid of him as fast as they could. No one would want him hanging around, reminding everyone of just how bad any operation could go. A pension, pity, and a pink slip were all he could expect from the Agency.

Fuck that, he said silently to himself. Fuck that and fuck the Agency and fuck the horse they rode in on, too. He couldn't tolerate that.

He forced his hand open and pressed it palm down against the cool wood of the table top. Sticky blood glued his skin to the wood. He took a deep, shaking breath. It had been a long time since he'd had to do that, had to hurt himself to rein in the festering rage that lived inside him.

"What are you doing, Sands?" El asked.

He tipped his face up and smiled his best, sweetest, you-have-no-idea-how-much-I-want-to-kill-you smile. Once, he would have had to keep the murder out of his eyes too, but that wasn't a problem now. "Thinking," he said softly.

"Try eating," El said and set a dish in front of Sands. A utensil clinked on the plate.

"What is it?" he asked. His nose told him, anyway, the warmly delicious scent of eggs and salsa reminding him how long it had been since he ate last.

"Eggs," El told him laconically. He picked up Sands' hand and put a fork in it.

Sands tried a bite. His stomach didn't rebel, so he tried another. Eating neatly without being able to see wasn't as easy as he'd have thought, but he went slowly. Tapping around the plate with the tines of the fork found something else he identified as some sort of sausage. Several warm, folded tortillas were next to it.

El sat down opposite and silently ate, too.

Sands' thoughts kept running in circles. What the hell was he going to do? Exactly what were the options for a blinded, ex-CIA agent? What did he have to live for now, anyway?

There wasn't a human being on earth who gave a damn if he lived or died, he realized. In the end, he wasn't even important enough to hate.

He stopped eating and just sat.

Maybe it would have been better if Ajedrez had just killed him. Better than this. Or if he had simply bled to death lying there after he shot her, better if the kid hadn't come back, if El hadn't saved him.

Balance.

Where was the balance in what had happened to him?

He dropped the fork onto his plate, winced at the noise, and braced his elbows on the table, dropping his face in his hands. Part of him was aware of the picture he must make, part of him didn't care. The gauze and tape over his eyes rasped against his palms. He itched to tear the bandages away. His fingers curled inwards.

He heard El slide the plate away, but didn't move.

He wasn't going back to the States. He wasn't going back to the CIA. He wasn't a CIA agent anymore. He wasn't ever going to see again.

El walked around the table and set his hand on Sands' shoulder. The warm, steady weight of that hand slowly soaked into the cold, choking blackness. Sands took a deep breath and slid his hands up through his hair. Then he dropped them to the table and straightened a little. El's hand tightened.

"El," he said softly.

"Sands?"

"I can't … I'm blind," Sands said bleakly. "I don't know how to do this."

"You'll learn," El declared. The hand resting on his shoulder promised that El would help. Sands couldn't imagine why the mariachi would do that, any more than he understood why El had saved him. He couldn't make himself ask why either. Not yet. The answer might destroy the delicate balance he had held onto since waking up blind.

There really wasn't anywhere he wanted to go, Sands thought. All his dreams of escape, of another life, of taking Ajedrez with him, were dust.

All he had left was El's hand and the sudden knowledge that he didn't mind that touch. For the first time, he wasn't alone.

Sands didn't know how to deal with that. He hated the very idea of needing anyone, but he wasn't going to let go or give up the strange companionship El had offered him so far.

He frowned.

He wanted to stay.

Well, wasn't that just dandy? Apparently, he really had lost his mind somewhere along the way. Anyone sane would want to get as far away as possible from anything that reminded them of this place and what he'd lost, but not him. No, he had to fixate on a revenge-obsessed guitar player turned assassin.

God damn Mexico.

***
El was startled to discover that the American could sing. In fact, Sands' voice was much better than his own. Persuading him to sing, though, was another matter. He'd finally decided Sands was embarrassed by the talent.

His efforts to get Sands to sing as the days went by finally earned him a punch to the belly, a split lip, and a snarling, spitting, clawing, backed-into-a-corner Sands.

He gave up.

Perversely, once El stopped pushing him, Sands remarked snidely, "Fine, you want me to sing for my supper? Get me some shades and I'll be a regular Ray fucking Charles."

But when he sang, El was ready to forgive much. American rock'n'roll, Mexican pop, tango ballads, country and western, blues and bluegrass, Sands knew an amazing variety of songs, including what he called Broadway and show tunes.

He'd sing in English and Spanish and a couple other languages El didn't know, including French. He'd start a song out of the blue and keep going until El joined in with the guitar.

El finally figured out why Sands was reluctant to sing, though. It wasn't embarrassment, it was vulnerability. When Sands sang, he couldn't focus his hearing on his surroundings. After that, El let Sands choose when to sing, knowing it was a gesture of trust when the man did. Mostly, he sang when he went up on the monastery's high walls or quietly when they were alone.

***
He had no bloody idea when it became more than neither of them wanting to sleep on the floor. El had been sharing his bed, soothing his nightmares, since he woke up blind. He'd grown so used to El's touch, any absence made him miss it, when before he'd never liked anyone touching him. Touching, yes, but he always wanted to be the one doing. He'd always wanted control.

He even fooled himself he had it, most of the time.

Lost it with Ajedrez, though, and lost badly. He hoped El wasn't going to be as bad a mistake. He didn't have much more to lose.

Enough to miss, though, if he lost it, so he let El make the first real move.

Pretended to be still asleep when El pulled him closer, relaxed against the big, furnace-hot body, comfortable. Slow, shallow, steady breaths as El hovered a hand over Sands' face. He could feel it in the air, a subtle pressure. Then a calloused thumb was stroking along his cheekbone.

Just that touch and Sands was melting, soft sound escaping his lips. Cock swelling embarrassingly fast. El's hand cupped his jaw, lifting his face. Sands pressed himself against El helplessly. His breath caught. El trailed his fingers over Sands' mouth and he opened, touched his tongue to them, tasted and sucked them in. His hands molded El's hardened body, trying to see with his fingertips. Warm skin and scars and he needed to be closer, skin to skin. Sands wasn't in control at all.

El slipped his fingers away and Sands whimpered. Hated himself for sounding so needy, but whimpered again and tucked his face against El's neck and tasted him there, kissing and gently biting. He was undulating against El now, too turned on to help as the Mariachi undressed them both.

El's hands smoothed over his back, streaked fire down the valley of his spine, played over his ribs and tested the hollows between each one, sliding down over Sands' flanks. He shuddered. El's hands on his hips guided him, pulled him up to sprawl over El's body. Sands found El's face with one hand, tried to trace it, but he was shaking too hard.

"Sh, sh, sh," El whispered. His hands gentled over Sands.

Sands slid down and found one of El's nipples. He tasted of salt, blood, lime. Sands licked it up, scraped his teeth over the sensitive flesh and smiled in delight as El twisted beneath him. He moved to the other nipple and treated it to little cat-licks, blowing on it in between.

El's hands were threading through his hair, fingers pressing into his skull, and he was growling. His erection pressed against Sands. Sands went still, forgetting to breathe.

What the hell was he doing?

He laid his cheek against El's chest and tried to think through his arousal. El's heart was beating fast, but not hammering its way out of his chest like Sands'. He didn't sleep with men. He never had, though he hadn't given a damn who did. El's hands on him felt so good but suddenly he was petrified. Hard as a rock, leaking pre-cum, and too scared to move. Not scared of suddenly being with a man, but of doing this with El. How far was this going to go and who was going to do what and … Oh, don't be ridiculous, he told himself. You think macho gunboy is going bottom? You know where this is going, Sheldon. Suck it up.

Find a different idiom too, because 'suck it up' might be just little too literal in the circumstances. A bubble of hysterical laughter hovered in his throat.

He was fucking terrified of what might come after they both got off, though, because El already meant more to him than was healthy. Or sane. Though sanity was over-rated, in Sands' opinion. Jesus, he was already like a textbook example of Stockholm Syndrome.

El stroked his hair. "Sands?" he asked in a low voice.

"No sé," Sands whispered.

"You don't like this?"

Sands shook his head, then nodded. He trailed his hand over El's shoulder, left it there. He was too confused.

"If you do not want to -"

El started to pull away and Sands latched onto him as tightly as he could. "I want to," he choked out. "I want to, okay, I just don't want you to blow my brains out in the morning." At least not with a gun, some irreverent part of his mind commented.

Soft, rumbling laughter spilled from the Mariachi. He relaxed and pulled Sands up and began kissing him. Sands responded mindlessly, letting El's tongue into his mouth, kissing back with all the skill and excitement he felt.

He was lying between El's legs, rubbing against him almost unconsciously, and gasped when his cock brushed against El's. A sigh slipped out of his mouth as El snaked a hand between them and wrapped it around both cocks. The friction, the silky heat and firmness, threatened to blow the top off Sands' head. His hips jerked and rocked as El found a rhythm that pumped them both together. Should have known the guitar-playing bastard would have a superior sense of rhythm.

Sands moaned against El's neck, unable to hold his head up, and pushed into that expert touch. Fuck, El was good. He kept running his own hands over whatever parts of El he could reach. Slickness from both of them mingled on their cocks as they slid together. El twisted and squeezed his hand, and then traced his fingers in patterns against the glans like he was playing a complex chord.

Sands whined and jerked into El's grip, desperate, urgent, needing with every fiber in him. Then it was just too much, too much wound too tight, and he came, felt the hot wet heat and surge of El coming too, and for an instant everything went white, light crashing through his brain. He groaned in pleasure and helpless, desperate longing, and collapsed against El. Fell into his darkness again, the semblance of light and sight locked away from him once more. Found out to his horror that his tear ducts still worked.

He was heaving for breath, slick with sweat, shaking in the aftermath, and leaking fucking tears. Before he could take another breath or pull himself away from El, Sands was folded tight in El's arms. El locked his mouth on Sands and drank the sound of pain and sorrow and loneliness until nothing was left and Sands thought he would pass out. Only when Sands was limp and compliant against him did El let him breathe.

He had nothing left. Whatever he was, whatever remained of Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, had just been pledged to El.

and his crotch and dripped on to the brown tile under his bare feet. He wasn't moving. Without the ropes holding him to the chair, he would have fallen out of it.

Pablo whimpered and prayed he wouldn't pee himself.

"Por Díos, por favor, please, please, please don't," his mama cried. "Please don't hurt him anymore. Please stop."

The man standing behind Juan jerked his head up by the hair. A bandanna was stuffed in his mouth. It was all wet and dark with spit and blood. Juan's eyes were open, but they were dull and empty and didn't see anything or even blink.

"Tell me where the other kid is and maybe I won't do this to him, too," the man said. He let go of Juan's hair, pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and wiped his fingers. Then he walked over to Mama and grabbed her chin, lifting her face. "You don't start talking now, chica, and I'll have Oso over there - " he nodded at the big man, " - ream him out with that big .45 he carries."

Mama whimpered and nodded.

"Bueno."

He let go of her chin and stepped back, a smile on his face. Pablo stared at him, memorizing his face. Pablo wanted to remember him. This one was the one in charge. This one was the one who had killed Papi and Juan. He was a bad man and some day Pablo would be like El Hombre Sin Ojos and shoot him.

"Now, tell me where little Pablito is."

"Señor, he is at school," Mama said. Her voice shook as she lied.

The man nodded and gestured to the one with the cigarette. "Vicente. Take Manolo, find out where the fucking school is, and go get the kid."

"Okay, Chucho."

"And don't fart around all day!" Chucho yelled.

Vicente nodded and left, followed by Manolo. Oso kept hold of Pablo's mama. Chucho smiled at Mama. There was something wrong, something bad about that smile, and it made Pablo feel sick and scared too.

Chucho ran his fingers over Mama's lips, then down her throat and inside her blouse. Then with a jerk, he tore the blouse off. Pablo closed his eyes.

Mama screamed and he had to look again. Chucho had his hand on his mama's breast and was hurting her again, squeezing and twisting his hand.

"Now, mamacita, why don't you tell me what you know about El Mariachi?" Chucho said.

"I don't know anything, please, it's only stories," she sobbed.

Chucho leaned closer to her. She tried to back away, but Oso had a tight hold on her. Chucho put his face next her breasts and rubbed his cheek against her. "Ah, mamacita, you smell good." He looked lifted his eyes and looked at her through his eyelashes, grinning. "Tell me a story."

Mama kept crying even as she told Chucho the story everyone in Culiacan had heard.

"They say a gringo found out that General Marquez and the Barillos meant to kill the President," she said shakily. Her face was slick with tears. One eye was swelling shut from a blow earlier. "He found El Mariachi and told him. On the Day of the Dead, El Mariachi came to Culiacan with his friends and the gringo. The gringo fought the Barillos and the other mariachis, they fought for the people in the streets, while El Mariachi saved the President. Please, Díos, please, don't - ."

She whimpered when Chucho put his mouth on her then went on. "Pablo, my son, he saw the gringo fight in the street. He said the Barillistas put the gringo's eyes out."

Chucho began shaking, laughing against her breast. "Caray, what a joke. No blind man can fight."

Pablo bit his lip in anger, remembering his American, the way he'd walked forward with the blood running down his face. Chucho didn't know. He wished El Hombre Sin Ojos was here now. He would make Chucho stop touching his mother. He would shoot Chucho.

"But it's a good story," Chucho giggled. He straightened up and began licking Mama's face. Oso's face was expressionless as he held her still, staring over her head at the wall. "Now tell me about the other mariachis, El Mariachi's friends."

Mama closed her eyes.

"My sister's cousin was here on the Day of the Dead. He lives in Cancún. He saw them that day. He swears they're in Cancún now. He said their names were Lorenzo and Fideo. They perform at some club for the tourists there."

"Well, well, well," Chucho murmured. "Do you think your little Pablo will tell me the same story?"

"Sí."

He plastered himself against her body and began rocking against her. "Then I guess I don't need you anymore, do I?" he muttered. His arm moved, Pablo couldn't see how, and Mama threw her head back and screamed.

Chucho stepped back and the knife in his hand slid out of Mama's belly in a gush of red blood. Mama's scream faded out into a small gurgle. The blood poured out of her stomach and splattered onto the tiles. Pablo clutched at the crumbling wood of the window sill and stared. Everything in his nine year old body screamed at him to run to her, to try and help her, but a still little voice in his head whispered in a voice like his American's that he couldn't do anything. Chucho and Oso would kill him. And he was so scared, so scared he couldn't even breathe.

Mama's legs sagged and her head fell down like Juan's. Oso let her fall to the floor.

Chucho ran his finger along the flat of his blade, then lifted the finger to his mouth and sucked the blood off. He grinned at Oso. "Go wait outside. I want to do her while she's still warm. As soon as Vicente gets back with the kid, we finish up here and go after that reporter woman and the Ramirez guy."

Oso grimaced and left.

Pablo back away from the window silently, almost blind with tears, and then ran.

***
The weeping, hysterical child wrapped around her was so different from the happy Pablo Grace had first met on arriving in Culiacan that she didn't know what to do. She'd been on her way out of the hotel when he ran up. The glimpse she'd got before the boy threw himself into her arms had shown her he was scratched and dirty, face blotched and pale, eyes red and swollen with tears. His body was trembling against her now.

She hugged him tight and rocked him, wondering if she shouldn't get him inside and back into her hotel room. People were looking at them.

"What is it, Pablo, what's happened?" she asked as he finally seemed to calm down a little.

"Mama and Papi, they-they-they killed them," Pablo gasped out, not looking up. His whole body was shaking.

Grace wanted to shake too. Killed them? It couldn't be true, could it? She looked around wildly. Culiacan was so beautiful, so colorful and filled with sunshine and brilliant flowers, but she knew it had a dark side. This was a city that had been owned by the drug cartels for years. Murder here had been a daily occurrence.

But who would kill the Santiagos? They were too poor to matter to the cartels.

She pushed Pablo away enough to look in his eyes. "Who?"

"Cartel," he choked out. His eyes were dark and glistening, eyelashes wet and spiked. He looked up at her, full of desperation. "They want to find El Mariachi."

Grace pulled him over into a corner of the lobby where they weren't so obvious. "Pablo, how do you know this? Are you sure?" she asked.

He nodded solemnly.

"Señorita, I saw them. I saw them through the window," he said in a small voice. "I saw." He started crying again and Grace folded him close in his arms, wondering what she could do now. The police needed to be called. That would be the same here or in the States, wouldn't it? Oh, god, this little boy had just seen his parents murdered, she realized. He'd already seen so much in his young life, but this was so much worse. She was no good at this, she didn't know how to help someone hurting this way.

She held onto Pablo until the boy pulled away from her. He squared his thin shoulders under the ripped T-shirt. "Señorita, I heard them talking. The one called Chucho said they would find you next."

Grace caught her breath.

"Me?"

Pablo nodded, wiping at his face and leaving dirty streaks through the tear tracks.

"Sí, señorita. You and the federale." He looked at her solemnly. "They killed Papi and Juan and Chucho took off Mama's shirt and touched her. He hurt her. He used a knife."

Grace clenched her hands in the fabric of her skirt, wanting to scream. She looked around, afraid she would see someone watching them, someone coming toward them with guns or bloody knives. She'd been so set on discovering the truth behind the stories, the darkness behind the bright legends, she'd never once thought it might reach out and pull her into the shadows. No wonder no one wanted to talk to her.

Hysteria threatened for a brief moment. According to Pablo, someone wanted to talk to her.

Pablo tugged at her wrist. "Señorita, we have to hide. They will come here."

She stared and then nodded. A nine year old boy had more sense than she did. "We'll go to Mr. Ramirez," she said, taking his hand. The ex-FBI agent would know what to do, who to call, how to keep Pablo safe.

She hoped so, anyway.

***

Ramirez was watering his flowers and ignoring Rachel Holliday when the green taxi pulled up in front of his house. He paused, the watering can in one hand, and watched as the reporter exited the back-seat, followed by a boy.
The boy.

Ramirez sucked in a breath. He didn't like this. He didn't like seeing the boy from the Day of the Dead, nor the way the kid was skinned up and dirty and tear-stained. He didn't like the jerky way Reyes was moving, the way she grabbed a handful of money from her purse and shoved it at the bespectacled taxi driver, the way that driver burnt rubber as he pulled away from the curb. He didn't like it, because everything about it spelled trouble.

Reyes slung her purse strap over her shoulder, grabbed the boy's hand and practically ran up the walk to the porch.

Automatically, Ramirez scanned up and down the street, looking for the SUVs the cartel favored. The street was empty, though, still and bleached out in the afternoon glare. The smell of wet dirt and green things in the pots on the shaded porch thickened the seared air pressing down around him. The only thing moving was the drift of off-white dust in the wake of the disappearing taxi. The only sound was the fading noise of its engine and a dog barking in the distance.

Behind him, Holliday shifted restlessly, sensing Ramirez' tension.

Reyes led the boy onto the porch and stopped with him in front of her, her hands protectively on his shoulders. She looked once at Holliday but then focused on Ramirez.

"Ms. Reyes," he said politely. He set the watering can down next to a flower pot.

She gulped and her eyes flickered toward the still empty street.

"This is Pablo," she said.

Pablo. The kid had a name.

"Some people came to his house today," Reyes said in a tight voice. The words came fast. "They were looking for him. They killed his family."

Holliday gasped. The boy flinched.

"How do you know this?" Ramirez asked, even though it wasn't anything that hadn't happened in Mexico - especially Culiacan - many times before. The kid - Pablo - was biting his lip.

"I saw them, Señor," he whispered. His voice cracked. "I saw them do it. I heard what they were saying."

"Come inside," Ramirez said.

Reyes looked at him gratefully. "Thank you."

He led them past his small front parlor to the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Coke, which he opened and handed to the kid. Pablo just held the sweating bottle. His eyes were glazed. That told Ramirez how bad it must have been.

"Tell me why you came here instead of going to the police," he said to Reyes.

Holliday took up a position near the kitchen door. She'd unbuttoned her jacket. Reyes' eyes flickered to her again, her mouth forming a question. Who? Then her lips firmed and her attention switched back to the boy.

Pablo, Ramirez corrected himself.

"Ms. Reyes?" Holliday prompted matter-of-factly.

"Who are you?"

"Special Agent Rachel Holliday, Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Reyes laughed, a sharp sound, the sound of someone faced with some intolerable irony.

Pablo rubbed his fingers over the rippled glass of the Coke bottle and started talking. "I looked in the kitchen window, señor. My Papi and my brother … They were dead. One of the men was called Chucho. He wanted to know how to find El Mariachi. He wanted to find me. He made my Mama tell him, but she lied. He killed her."

"Sonovabitch," Holliday muttered.

"I heard him say to the others that after they found me they would find Señorita Reyes and you, Señor," Pablo whispered.

Reyes said, "When he told me, I thought you would know better than me what to do. I thought you'd want to know." She pushed a strand of hair off her temple. Her hands were shaking. "Do you know who this Chucho is?"

"No," Ramirez answered. He stood up. "We have to leave. If the cartels have gone after you and the boy, they'll be frustrated. They'll come here next."

He headed for the bedroom. He had a bag there. He'd grab it and they'd leave. Now. He'd never kept where he lived secret. If the cartels were hunting El Mariachi again and thought he might know something, they'd come right here.

Sonovabitch. He couldn't even blame this on Sands. It had probably been Reyes, with her questions, or the dynamic duo of Holliday and Bethel showing up - Fucking Bethel. It had probably been the dirty agent that sold him out to the drug runners. Bethel had done it before, to Tom Archuleta.

Holliday was trailing after him. "You have to call the local authorities, Ramirez."

He slammed his closet open and pulled out the duffle he kept there, then threw it on the bed. "I have to live long enough to do that. So does that kid and the stupid reporter," he snapped. He went to his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. His old revolver and a box of shells were there. He spilled a handful of shells into his palm and shoved them in his pants pockets. The rest of the box went in the duffle.

The growl of a big engine rumbled through the quiet house, braking to a stop on the front street.

"Shit," Ramirez exclaimed. He rushed out of the bedroom. A glance down the hall showed him Reyes and the boy hovering in the kitchen doorway. A tremor ran through Pablo. He knew what was coming.

"What - " Reyes started to ask.

"Get him back between the wall and the refrigerator," Ramirez snapped at her. "Stay down."

Holliday pulled her service revolver. She looked at Ramirez and tipped her head toward the front room and the windows. He nodded. "Go left."

He disengaged the safety on his own weapon and sidled along the wall until he reached window and could peer out.

Two SUVs were idling in park on the street. One big man was already out of a vehicle. Ramirez counted three others.

"I count four," he told Holliday.

She nodded, a gloss of light sliding down her smooth dark hair. Her expression was set into a controlled, professional mask.

Ramirez didn't twitch the curtain aside. That kind of movement drew the eye. He just put his eye to the gap along the edge again. The other three were out of the vehicles now. All of them dressed in the Mexican version of cocaine chic, no ties, black sunglasses, dark suits to cover up the shoulder holsters. One of them was a monolithic man, built like a pro wrestler, suit coat strained across his shoulders, shaven head shining in the sun, with a bushy black Fidel Castro beard. A broad grin flashed through the hair and he drew a massive, chrome-finished .45 out from under his coat.

The first boom of the .45 blew the front door open, swinging it on its hinges until it hit the wall and rebounded. Ramirez cursed under his breath. It hadn't been locked.

He flattened himself against the wall and doubled checked that the safety was off on his revolver. Holliday waited across the room. He hoped like hell he could count on her. Four against two was bad, four against one would be worse, but if it was five … the kid, the reporter and Ramirez were all screwed once and for all.

Footsteps on the porch. Ramirez blinked hard, trying to readjust his eyes to the dimness in the house after staring out into the afternoon light. Two of the goons walked straight into the living room. They were both armed with submachine guns and started spraying down the room. Bullets gouged deep pockmarks in rows across the plastered walls.

Ramirez took a step forward to settle into his shooting stance, leveled the .38 at the closest man's back and fired without hesitation. He had no problems with shooting the man in the back, either. So he told himself. Not when all he had was a six-shot revolver against a MAC11. The rattle of the submachine guns almost masked the .38's report. The second man started to turn, glimpsing Ramirez in the corner of his eye, but never had time to re-aim the submachine gun. Ramirez fired two bullets into him.

Holliday fired at the third man as he started through the door, startling a yell from him. Holliday kept firing toward the door.

The big man's .45 boomed again and again, tearing holes right through the walls. Ramirez and Holliday both ducked. Ramirez dropped to his knees and scrambled over to the closest body. He pulled the submachine gun from the dead man's hand, aimed it out his door, and emptied the clip. The .45 fired again and heavy footsteps beat away from the porch. A moment later one of the SUVs roared to life and away.

"That's it," Ramirez muttered.

Holliday ducked her head around the window and looked. "That's all of them."

Ramirez stayed on his knees, pulling air into his lungs through his nose, letting the adrenaline drain out of his suddenly aching muscles. He was too old for this. He was retired, damn it. His hands still wanted to shake and he threw the emptied submachine gun away with a clatter.

Holliday was kneeling by the door. Checking the pulse of the man she'd shot. He saw her grimace and pull back her hand. Then she was calmly looting the corpse's pockets for clips to reload the gun she took off it. Ramirez shook his head and got to his feet. Just like every female agent he'd ever worked with, when the sugar turned to shit, they got the job done with a pragmatism that put most men to shame.

Part of him couldn't believe they'd just survived a small firefight with four cartel gunmen. The rest of him knew it would never have happened if the gunmen hadn't been overconfident or Pablo and Reyes hadn't arrived to warn him.

Ramirez swung around and headed into the kitchen to make sure they were both still all right.

He found Reyes right where he'd told her to go, the kid flattened to the wall behind her, a determined expression on her face and one of his kitchen knives in her hand.

Holliday followed him into the kitchen a minute later, setting the submachine gun on his table with clunk.

"Is it over?" Reyes asked.

He plucked the knife from her fingers and tossed it in the kitchen sink. The sound of metal hitting porcelain made them all flinch.

"It's never over, señorita," Ramirez said tiredly. His voice sounded distant to him; his ears were still ringing. "Not until you're dead."

***
Ramirez tiredly rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the wreckage of his home. It was a small house, but he'd lived in it for almost seven years. It had been a quiet place, until Grace Reyes showed up chasing legends. Even Sands hadn't come into his house.

He blinked and thought: coming to his house would have been too personal for Sands. The man had been in love with his cell phones. They let him whisper in everybody's ears and still keep them at a distance. So much of Sands had just been an act meant to distract anyone from seeing inside him. He didn't like thinking about Sands, because he still wasn't sure whether he hated the Agent or felt grateful, but he knew he felt guilty for walking away from him on the Day of the Dead.

Grace Reyes had stirred all that up, too, with her questions.

Now, his little refuge was shot to shit. Quite literally. The rain of gunfire had hit something in the plumbing and a sewer stench wafted from the bathroom.

Three dead cartel men in the living room. Blood pooled on the tile floor and stained the rugs, stuffing burst from holes shot in the furniture, and broken glass scattered over it all. The survivor of their little firefight had made it to one of the SUVs and sped away. Ramirez knew that one would be back, with more men, better armed, soon.

He glanced at the reporter. Reyes had her arms wrapped and the little boy. Pablo, he reminded himself again. He wondered how she'd found the kid.

He wondered what Pablo knew about Sands or if he'd just been there by chance.

Whatever had happened to Sands, it couldn't have been good. He told himself Sands must have called his own agency for help, used the phone Ramirez had tossed him, but recognized his own rationalization. He didn't know.

He realized he was thinking about Sands and the Day of the Dead to keep from thinking about what had just happened.

Holliday was tying her hair back in a neat ponytail. A spatter of blood marred her cheek. Her service weapon was back in its holster at the small of her back, but the submachine gun she'd lifted off one of the dead men lay on the kitchen table close to hand. Her lips were pressed together and she was scowling fiercely.

"I cannot believe I was just in a cartel shoot-out," she muttered. "The paperwork is going to be murder."

"Do us a favor and don't mention it," Ramirez said. "Go home. Pretend you never saw us, never were here."

"I have to make a report," Holliday said.

Ramirez lifted his shoulders. He was too tired to argue with her. She hadn't been in Mexico long enough for the righteousness and American certainty to wear away.

"Whatever."

Reyes held the boy with his face against her, stroking her hand over his shaking shoulders. Black hair hung in a tangled mess over her face. She looked shell-shocked. "I don't understand," she said softly. "Why did they come after us?"

"The cartels have a bounty out on El Mariachi. Any hint of a way to find him and they'll go after it. When you started nosing around, someone heard and thought they'd found a lead," Ramirez explained.

"But why kill - ?" Her hand stroked over the boy's head. He guessed she meant the boy's family.

"Because they were in the way, or didn't know anything useful, or just to teach everyone else a lesson."

"And now?" Holliday asked, arching an eyebrow.

Ramirez nodded.

"They'll be back; they will want revenge for the men they lost here. That's why we have to go."

Reyes pressed her eyes closed. "We should call the police."

Ramirez laughed sourly. "This is Mexico. The cartels own half the police force."

"So what will you do?" Holliday asked.

"Hide," Ramirez said. He walked into his bedroom, picked up the dufflebag and headed for the door. Part of him had been expecting this since El Día de Los Meurtos. Before that. He'd packed his case the day he came to Culiacan. He couldn't blame Sands entirely. The CIA agent had only been the catalyst; he hadn't blackmailed Ramirez into going after Barillo. He would have done it, sooner or later, he realized now.

Carrying the duffle in one hand, he walked back into the kitchen and took Reyes' elbow. "Let's go." She came along, still in a numb daze, and the boy came with her.

At the door, Ramirez looked back at Holliday.

"You do whatever you think you have to," he said. "But the cartel is after this kid. I'm going to get him somewhere safe and disappear."

"You're going to walk out of crime scene without making a report and … and just run?" Holliday exclaimed. "What about the police?"

"Sí," he said. "This isn't the States, Holliday. Too many of the police here are owned by the cartels. The ones that aren't are helpless and frightened. Silver or lead is the only choice any of them have here."

She shook her head.

"What the hell happens to people down here?"

Ramirez made a sour face. "Go back while you can," he advised. "You don't belong here."

He pushed Reyes and the boy out the door and followed, letting it slam with a hollow echo behind him. Holliday was left alone, frowning at the house full of bodies.

***
Chucho was simmering with rage. The puta had lied and since he'd already killed her, he couldn't make her feel it as he kicked her body over and over.

He whirled and stabbed his finger at Oso.

"Fucking useless cabrón! You can't find some bitch when you got the fucking hotel room number, you can't find some tittysucking kid, and you let some two-bit asswipe ex-Fed chase you away with your tail between your legs!"

"Chucho - "

"Shut up," Chucho hissed.

Oso shut up.

Chucho paced manically back and forth across the kitchen of the Santiago house. He paid no attention to the sticky, dried brown puddles of blood under his shoes. He was frowning. Absently, he ran the blade of the knife in his hand over his own finger tips, drawing stripes of his own blood on the pads.

With a cry, he stopped and threw the knife. Oso flinched as the blade sank into the wall next to his head and quivered.

"Take the others and go back to the Fed's house. Search it. Find out where he'd go. Kill him if he still there," Chucho said.

Oso nodded, then asked, "Where will you be?"

"Cancún," Chucho said. "I'm in the mood to look up some mariachis, listen to a little music, find out where an old friend of theirs is."

He brushed up next to Oso and jerked the knife out of the wall. Oso swayed away from him. Chucho was almost two feet shorter than the big Mexican and built slightly, but he was fast and poisonous as a snake. Oso was scared of him.

"They won't tell you where El Mariachi is," Oso said carefully.

"He'll come running when I starting fucking them up."

Oso chuckled.

Chucho laughed with him for a minute, then stopped abruptly. "Get out. Go back to Chiapas when you're done. I'll call you at the bar."

Bring Your Guitars
The padre brought the message from the cantina mid-morning, just before the real heat of the day began pressing down. El refused to have a phone at the monastery. Sands had found he didn't care. He thought El still had the cell phone he'd given him, but no one except Sands had ever known the number for it. So anyone - though Sands had no idea who that would be - who wanted El, called the Café Azul and left a message for him.

They were sitting at the padre's booth. El had found him a place that let the sun shine on his legs, but left his face in the shade, something Sands liked. El was stringing a new guitar. Sands had, despite declaring he wasn't about to help, picked up another one and begun tuning it.

He tuned all the guitars now, since complaining bitterly that the off-notes were pure torture. Most of Sands' complaints were for show, but not that. He couldn't stand listening to an untuned guitar.

He was also considering whether it would be worth the outcry and general mariachi pissiness if he shot someone the next time a busload of tourists rolled through town. Which would be in about an hour, he thought.

"Just one," he muttered. "And only if it's a really annoying voice."

"What are you muttering?" El asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing, really," Sands replied too quickly. He smiled and tried to look innocent. From El's snort, he knew he hadn't succeeded, but he'd never done innocent particularly well even with people who hadn't known him. While El, well, El knew Sands better than anyone, even his mother (a good thing she didn't, since that included knowing him in the carnal, Biblical sense too), ever did.

Ducking his head, Sands started playing Sympathy for the Devil, ignoring El's comment. "You would like that song."

"Dickhead. It's a classic," Sands replied. He really had no excuse for being so cheery in the middle of the morning, trapped in this ass-end excuse for a town in the middle of Mexico nowhere, no job, no hope, no money, no fucking eyes. No reason except El had fucked his brains out again the night before and again as the sun rose - the warmth of it had crawled rosy-fingered over his bared skin from the east facing window - and Sands was still wrung out, sated, and insanely pleased.

He kept playing and even managed to pretend to ignore the tourists that wandered through the square later- for a while - though El had to peel his hand off the neck of the guitar he was holding at one point - "You're going to snap it." - "Just pretending it's that woman's neck." El didn't comment further.

Another flock arrived in front of the booth.

'Oh, look, a mariachi! - Oh, look, he must be blind. - I didn't know Mexicans were so pale. - I wonder if he plays requests. - He probably doesn't even speak English, Elizabeth, none of these taco wackers do.'

Sands didn't look up from the guitar in his arms. His brows arched and he muttered to El, "Taco wackers? Gee, The, doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart, the deep and abiding respect for another culture folks bring with them when they visit good ole Mejico?"

"You're the gringo, what do you think?"

"Oh, excuse me, do you speak English? Um, habla Ingles?"

"Yeah, we habla, you twit," Sands snapped. "Now, we were having a private conversation, so could you just go fuck off?"

"Well, really, there's no need to be rude - "

"You think that's rude?" Sands said. In a flat tone he explained, "Rude would be me grabbing your hubby-bubby there, reaching down his throat, pulling out his greasy intestines and using them to strangle him for calling my buddy here a 'taco wacker', Elizabeth."

Several gasps were followed by the rush of feet carrying the tourists away. Sands smiled in satisfaction.

El commented, "I don't need you to defend me."

"Don't deny me these little bits of enjoyment, El."

El strummed a chord on the guitar he'd been working on. Sands cocked his head. Only five strings.

"Honestly, you don't want me to shoot people, you don't want me to threaten your merry Mexican compadres, and now you don't want me to even insult my own delightful countrymen?"

"Sí."

"I hate you."

Just to needle the mariachi, Sands began playing again, deliberately plinking the notes in a way meant to drive any musician crazy. El went on with his work, adding the last string to the guitar and slowly tightening it. The tuning peg squeaked faintly and the string creaked as it was drawn taut.

At which point, the padre returned and El apologized to him because Sands had chased away his customers. As if. That lot wasn't about to buy anything, they just wanted someone to perform like a monkey for them. He'd have done Mexico and the US a favor if he had offed them all. What were a few fat tourists from Milwaukee, anyway?

"Marcos received a call for you," the padre told El.

Sands idly strummed the guitar, listening. Information was always useful. He'd already learned that Marcos was the bartender/manager of Café Azul, the dingy cantina at the far end of the square, where the food was two notches above edible, the tequila was adequate, and the air smelled of shadows, sawdust, lime, and lard.

"A compadre of yours is in need."

The priest spoke quietly, but Sands had always had sharp ears - the better to hear you with, my dear - and he had nothing to distract him from what he heard now. Sometimes the world seemed so newly loud he wanted to turn the volume down. He bent forward over the sweet curves of the guitar and played very softly, listening. The shade had moved and the late morning sun burned the crown of his head, heated the frets under his fingertips and the denim over his legs. He tasted dust and smelled a mixture of lacquer, beer, and chilis swirling through the square, along with the fading diesel stench of the tourist bus' exhaust.

"Who?" El asked. Sands heard him put the newly strung guitar aside.

"Marcos said to tell you it was someone called Fideo," the padre explained. Sands imagined his head was bent close to El's. An old man from the sound of his voice, seamed and cracked and full of a lifetime's patience. "He left a number for you to call … a number in the Yucatán."

Sands raised his eyebrows and winced, feeling the scar tissue on his eyelids pull. There were other habits he needed to break himself of. Trying to roll his eyes, for one, since he didn't fucking have any - and it hurt in a distant, not quite painful way.

"I will call him," El promised. "Soon."

Sands ran his hand across all six strings, listening closely to the instrument, and allowed himself a little smile. Perfectly tuned.

He held out the guitar, assuming one of them, padre or El, would take it. "Here. - I feel the need for a tequila and lime."

El took the guitar and then his hand was on Sands' shoulder. It might look like he was trying to guide him, but El knew very well Sands didn't need or want any damn help.

"Very well, my friend."

Sands really hated how much he liked hearing El call him that. They were fucking. They weren't buddies. He didn't want a goddamn friend. Friends called up and wanted help in the middle of the night and then split when they'd got what they wanted. Where had any friends been when he was stationed to Mexico? Where were any friends when he had his fucking eyes gouged out? It hadn't been anyone from the CIA or even his own country that helped him, just a gum-selling kid and a murderous mariachi. He wasn't about to forget that.

They made it to the cantina without encountering any tourists, at least. Sands blatantly followed El to the bar and stood next to him as he asked Marco for the phone.

Marco brought over a glass of tequila and a quartered lime, setting them in front of Sands with the smallest ring of glass on the bar-top.

"Your friend says to call Fideo at this number," Marcos told El. Soft scuff sound of a piece of paper pushed across the bar and El's fingers closing on it. Sands grimaced into his tequila. Whatever was written there, no matter how well he listened, he could never read again.

Damn it, he'd liked reading. Biographies, histories, science fiction, pulp westerns, he'd liked reading them all. Well, there were always books on tape, he consoled himself. He'd have to learn braille too.

Being blind was just an utter pain.

The phone was an old fashioned one with a dial. The sound of it was a zinging trip into his childhood, dipping his fingers into the holes over the numbers, the feel of smooth black plastic, pulling the dial around and releasing it … Sands shook his head, frustrated. He couldn't deduce the numbers from the sound, not the way he could from the ring tones of a touch-tone phone.

There's nothing to stare at when you're blind. Just darkness that makes you think, because there's no way to distract yourself from what's in your head. Sands despised whiney self-introspection. He turned his face toward El, making no pretense of not listening.

"Fideo?"

If he concentrated - and Sands could concentrate very well, thank you - he could just make out most of the other side of the phone call.

"El. It's a mess. Lorenzo found a girl. Anna. Now she's gone."

"What do you mean, gone?" El asked.

"There's cartel here. Bautista. One of their men showed up. He took her."

"Who is he?"

Sands shivered at the low, dangerous tone to El's voice. At the same time, he grinned. He tossed back the tequila and started plotting. He didn't know enough about the Bautista Cartel, but he knew who to contact to find out what he didn't.

"He calls himself Chucho. He wants the bounty on you."

"What's Lorenzo doing?"

"Going fucking crazy. Are you coming?"

"Sí."

"Soon?"

Sands reached over and wrapped his hand around El's forearm. "We have to go to Mexico City first. Two days," he said. El's arm tensed under his hand. Sands tightened his fingers.

"Where are you?" El asked.

"Ciudad Cancún. The Hotel Quintana Roo."

"Soon." El pulled his arm away from Sands' grip. "Lock Lorenzo in a room and tell him I'm bringing my guitar."

El set the phone receiver down. Sands immediately told him, "You're bringing me too."

"Why Mexico City?"

"Information on the Bautista cartel. I have a contact there, someone who owes me," Sands said swiftly.

"How do you know about the cartel?" El asked suspiciously.

Sands held up on finger. "A. Mexico was my beat. Knowing was part of my job." He added a second finger. "B. I just heard your little friend Fideo mention them."

"You want to come with me," El said.

"I am going with you, mister," Sands told him. "If you try to leave without me, I'll shoot you myself and save the cartels the trouble."

El snorted.

"Let's go."

Sands focused on the sound of El's steps and skittered after him. He heard the whispers of the other people in the cantina and smiled to himself. He knew it bothered everyone that watched, that a blind man could move so fast and never run into anything.

"So we're going?"

"We need to pack."

"Yeah, what?" he asked.

El's answer floated back to him as they crossed the square.

"Ammo."

***
He decided to make the call from the car, barreling down the road south, sitting next to El. He had the cell phone he'd handed over to El, along with the blow-up of Marquez, back before the Day of the Dead. Just remembering El's expression while Sands had expounded on balance and peurco pibil made him grin.

It had been such bullshit.

He'd thought El was a ridiculous, sulking bundle of self-pity until the mariachi remarked in a disbelieving voice, "You want me to shoot the cook?" Sands had barely kept from laughing.

He turned the cell phone over in his hands. Smooth, light plastic, wires, chips, batteries. Every agent's mandatory accessory in a high-tech world, always in his pocket or sitting at the table or desk in front of him. It would be a surprise if it still worked. If it didn't, they'd have to find some place with a phone along the way. He hadn't even contemplated contacting anyone from the phone at Café Azul. He didn't want a trace on him leading back to Villa Perdidos.

Sands grimaced to himself. He'd gone soft. If Guitar Town got too hot for him, he'd just pack up and leave. He'd never been attached to a place. He still wasn't, damn it. It was El he'd have to pry loose from the place and he wasn't sure he could do it.

Just thinking about it made his head throb. Another headache. He hoped it wouldn't be a real bitch. He'd had a couple of those lately, bad enough he just wanted to shoot himself to make it stop. He set the cell on the seat and rubbed at his temples.

This wasn't the time to feel sorry for himself. He fumbled for the phone again, punching in a number that he remembered easily - resolutely refusing to flashback to leaning against that hot wall in Culiacan when he'd realized there was no one to call.

Hah. It still worked. And if the damned phone did, so would he.

"Hello, Quin."

"Sands?" Quin had never lost the slight Anglo-Irish accent, even after almost twenty years of foreign postings. The shock in his voice made Sands smile.

"The one and only."

"Too bad. Someone told me you were dead. I had a drink."

"Aw, I'm touched. Tequila and lime?"

"Saké. - I'm disappointed."

He laughed. "Quin, my friend, remember that teeny little problem you had with the smoke back in Chiang Rai?" he said. "The one I helped you kick?"

Quin was silent for a beat. "I remember I thought I was in hell."

"Yeah, so do I. Listen, I need some information, it's really not a big deal, nothing your bosses will care about, not like Chiang Rai, and I thought, you know who owes me big time?"

"Bloody hell. Right then, I suppose it's get you what you want or a transcript of my detox shows up in London?"

"Quid pro quo, amigo, that's all. No one rides for free."

"I'm not even going to ask why you're coming to me."

"Swell. Why don't we meet for lunch day after tomorrow - I'll be in Mexico City by then. I'll call."

"Am I going to get anything out of this?"

"Not a blessed thing, my friend," Sands told him and ended the call.

He took a deep breath. Nothing had changed. He didn't need his eyes to pull the strings. He wouldn't think about how he'd broken out in a sweat. This was his game and he could still play it with the best. No question. Sheldon Jeffrey Sands still had it.

He still had a nauseating headache, too. He dropped the cell again and slumped down with his head against the door-window. The lockpost dug into his cheek. He twisted his face to the side. He needed air before his stomach decided to turn inside out all over the dashboard. It was just the movement of the car. One of the tires must be low, it had a hell of a shimmy going. He wasn't going to throw up. He wasn't.

He found the window crank and frantically wound it down, turning his face into the rushing air, breathing in and out, until things settled.

"What time is it?" he asked suddenly. The air didn't feel like daylight air. It was moister. Not much cooler, even though it was rushing into his face at a good seventy miles an hour, but he tasted the difference. Felt it. Something. "Is it dark?"

"Sands?"

He swallowed hard.

"Everything's cool, my friend," he assured El.

"It's late," El said. "Ten twenty-three." A pause. "It's dark."

Sands faced him across the seat, even though he couldn't see anything. "Oh."

"Are you tired?"

He shook his head. "I'm not even the one driving, El. I'm fine."

El reached over and caught his arm. Sands let him pull him over the bench seat, sliding across the worn leather upholstery. He dropped his head against El's shoulder. Much better than the car door, he decided. A little wriggling and he'd got himself comfortable.

The darkness and the motion didn't seem so disturbing while in contact with El. The vertigo receded. Sands began to relax.

El's muscles shifted beneath his cheek as he reached forward to the dash. A second later the radio came on. It was a Tex-Mex station from along the border, playing an eclectic mix of Mexican pop and country rock.

Los Lobos.

"Okay?" El asked.

"Peachy," Sands said. He felt the old car pick up further speed. "Try not to kill us when that fucking tire blows out, okay?"

***
Siesta time and the city was almost quiet, somnolent in the hot sun, still in the shadows.

Quin knew before he arrived that Sands would already be at the rendezvous.

He sat down at the table opposite Sands. Even in the dark cantina, Sands had a pair of over-sized black sunglasses on. He was paler and thinner than Quin remembered. Still an arrogant prick, though, sitting there with his back to the door. At the bar, a big man quietly fingered a tune on a guitar, stopping to drink now and then. Other than the guitar player, Sands, and the bartender, the cantina seemed empty.

"You need to lay off the cologne, Quin," he said. "I could smell you coming from the door." A tequila and lime sat before him, but no dish of food.

"No peurco pibil?" Quin asked.

"No," Sands said with a funny little twist to his mouth. "It doesn't taste the same." He tipped his head, listening to the guitar player, who was rather good. "You know, if he plays Malagueña, I may have to shoot him."

Almost as though he'd been listening, the guitar player began playing Malagueña. A muscle twitched in Sands' cheek and Quin braced himself. Sands might turn around and put a bullet between the musician's eyes; he'd done as much before. He could only hope the crazy bastard waited until their meeting was over and Quin was gone. The guitar player sped up, thumped his guitar to add percussion, and added a flourish to the end of each chord. The notes cascaded from his fingers faster and faster, then slowed into an almost melancholy air.

Sands surprised him by laughing and tossing back his tequila. "Prick." He carefully lifted the tequila bottle and poured another shot. The moves were so slow and studied, Quin wondered how much the man had already had.

He cocked his head at Quin.

"Well, gee, Quin, you must have some questions, since I called you out of the so-to-speak blue. I know you were probably overjoyed to realize I was alive and all, but by now you must be asking yourself what I want."

Quin slumped back in his seat.

"All right," he said. "What do you want? Why the hell aren't you dead?"

Sands leaned forward and smiled. "You know, I'm glad you asked that, Quin. Because it's simple. I am dead. I want you to remember that, first of all. It's very important that if anyone asks you, you tell them that poor Agent Sands is in a better place these days."

"And will anyone be asking?"

Sands steepled his black-gloved hands before him. "That is a question, isn't it?"

Quin waited.

Sands shrugged. "I need you to tell me everything about the Bautista cartel. Who works for them, what they're up to, where they have their headquarters. The whole enchilada." His fingers drummed against the table in exact rhythm with the guitar.

"Good lord, playing games with Barillo and the military wasn't enough for you, Sands?"

"Golly, Quin, I didn't know you cared," Sands said. His voice had gone flat and his face expressionless. All the playfulness had disappeared. His hand stilled.

"I don't. I think you're insane."

"You're right." Sands gave him that thin-lipped smile that sent a shiver up Quin's spine. "So, get me what I want. I'll call you, you'll give me the information, and we'll be all squared away. Balanced."

"Sure." Quin didn't like it when Sands used words like balance. It usually preceded some complicated plan or a murder. Both, actually.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." The false brightness drained out of Sands' voice before he finished. He waved his hand toward the doorway behind him. "Now, fuck off."

Quin got up, shaking his head. "You're still a jerk. Fuck with the Bautistas and I won't have to lie about you being dead. They'll hand you your ass on a platter. They're cartel - ."

He reached into his jacket and became aware of the big guitar player standing next to him. Simmering dark eyes measured him. The guitar was sitting on the bar and the guitar player had a automatic in his hand. It pointed at him unwaveringly. Loose dark hair framed the man's sullen face. He shook his head slowly, made a mocking clickclickclick with his tongue.

"What are you about to do, hey?"

Sands didn't look up, but he sighed with exaggerated exasperation.

The guitar player said, "If he is anything like you - "

"What did I tell you, El?" Sands said peevishly. He waved one black gloved hand, then snapped the fingers. "Oh, that's right, to stay out of sight and let me handle this. For fuck's sake, this is what I do for a living - "

"I am not so trusting as you," the guitar player said. "And I do not like endangering one friend to help another."

Sands lifted both hands in the air and muttered, "Oh, my Christ. He's British Intelligence, El, he isn't going to shoot me in the middle of a public place. "

"I would," El declared.

"You are perfectly happy to hold a shoot-out in a church," Sands said. Fond approval colored his words. "Maniac."

The guitar player chuckled rustily. "You wouldn't?"

"Hey, psychopath here, remember?"

Quin was surprised to see a real smile flicker across Sands' face. A wild flash of humor lit the guitar-player's face, too. With a magician's flicker of fingers, the gun disappeared up the man's sleeve.

"How could I forget," the guitar player murmured. "Introduce us."

"El, Quin. Quin, you should feel honored, you're in the presence of El Mariachi, guitar-slinging, gun-toting, cartel-killing, genuine Mexican vigilante legend." Sands paused and added, "Annoying, stubborn shitwit."

"Loco gringo," El Mariachi replied, unperturbed.

There were stories about the man with a guitar case full of guns, a man with no name, rumors that the man had killed Armando Barillo and General Marquez on the Day of the Dead, but Quin had thought they were only that: stories. Then again, there were stories about Sands, and he'd seen enough of the rogue CIA agent to know those weren't just stories.

What was unbelievable was El Mariachi and Sands working together. They should have been enemies. They seemed like a match made in hell.

He stared into the Mexican's heated eyes and carefully pulled out the cell phone he'd been reaching for. Without shifting his eyes, he set it on the table and skated it toward Sands. "Here. I'll call you when I have the files."

Sands closed his hand on the phone. "I might have a small problem with that," he said. "Unless you can get me copies in braille."

"What?"

Sands stood up too. He faced Quin, lifted his hand to his sunglasses and slid them off. Quin jolted and bit back a curse. Bone pale scar tissue was all that was left of Sands' once dark eyes. Several thin, ragged scars marked his eyelids, fading to white, yet testifying to the ordeal that had left Sands blind.

"Blind as a bat," Sands said into Quin's shocked silence. He arched his brows. "Makes reading files a real pain, you can imagine." He slid the black sunglasses back on and smiled. "Don't worry about it, Quin. El can read them to me. "

"What the hell happened to you?" Quin whispered.

"Just one of those things," Sands quipped. "I was sleeping with my contact in the AFN and it turned out she was Barillo's daughter. They drilled out my eyeballs on El Día de los Muertos." A skull-faced grin accompanied his light words.

Quin gaped.

"Ajedrez was the last thing I ever saw. At least she was beautiful." Sands frowned and added, "Well, really, the last thing I saw was that fucking drill."

"How the hell can you joke - how can you want anything to do with another cartel after that?" Quin demanded.

Sands shrugged. "Should I cry?"

"They are dead. He is not," El said, startling Quin.

"Besides, I didn't say I was going to take on the Bautista cartel. I just want to know about them," Sands said. "So just do this and we're quits."

Quin looked at the Mariachi, then at the blind man. "If it means I never have to hear from you again … you've got a deal."

"Whatever," Sands muttered. He pulled a telescoping cane out of his jacket, snapped it out to full length and headed for the door. El hesitated only long enough to retrieve the guitar on the bar and followed.

Quin slumped down into a chair and poured himself a shot of tequila. When he set it down, he realized Sands had stuck him with the tab. With a shrug, he toasted both men who had left. He'd get Sands the information and then he'd put in for a transfer again. No matter what, he had some vacation time coming, and with that hellish duo on the prowl, he was going to take it.

Sands had always trailed chaos behind him like the wake of a tornado and El Mariachi was still infamous for the massacres he left behind. The two of them together would tear Mexico apart.

Of course, it would be interesting when he told Sands the CIA was in bed with Bautista.

***
El took Sands' wrist in his hand and tugged him along the sidewalk toward their destination. Automatically, Sands balked.

"Where are we going?" he asked suspiciously.

"We have an appointment."

Sands tried to jerk his hand loose.

"Funny, El, I don't remember making any appointments except with Quin," Sands said. "I think I'd remember something like that, seeing as we just got into Mexico City last night and I haven't been near a phone since we left your little Mexican Mayberry."

"Sands - "

"Come on, Señor My-Name-Is-An-Article, explain to me this appointment we have, because my name ain't Tonto," Sands said.

El just waited.

"Oh, my Christ," Sands muttered. "Tonto? As in the Lone Ranger and …?" El thought if the man could have rolled his eyes, he would have. Instead, his free hand moved in a gesture eloquent of exasperation.

"Just tell me."

El tugged the American toward a doorway, out of the foot traffic passing along the sidewalk. He leaned one shoulder against the chipped, teal painted stucco of a wall. Sands faced him, strings of long, dark hair falling over his oil-black sunglasses. El realised, startled, that there were strands like dulled gold and bronze sun-streaked through the black. He pictured Sands back in their village, a shadow curled around a pale guitar, pale hands questing over the neck, plucking out slow melodies, tuning it with a perfectionist's ear, searing sun burning over his bent head. He had to resist the urge to brush the hair away from Sands' face, to feel for the bone-deep heat caught in the darkness.

"I'm waiting," Sands said in a sing-song voice and crossed his arms over his white shirt. El had tried to convince him that wearing all black in the Mexican heat was madness, but his only concession had been replacing his black shirts with tacky T-shirts or the plain white. He had donned a black jacket over it, to hide the double shoulder holster and his guns. He'd even drawn on the black gloves he'd had on when El found him in Culiacan.

"You have an appointment with an expert, a specialist, a man the doctor in our village knows."

"That is just a waste of time," Sands immediately objected. "My eyes are history. - Now, why don't we go back to the hotel?"

"Afterward," El said.

"Explain to me why I should let some greasy quack stick his fingers in my eyeholes when there is nothing, nada, zilch that anyone can do about the fact that I have no eyes, you dickplucking egomaniac," Sands demanded in a furious monotone. Black leather covered fingers were drumming a tense rhythm against his own elbow. In a moment, they would be resting on the butt of one of his guns.

El caught Sands' hand and drew it away. Sands let him, a surprising allowance in public. Even when they were alone, he sometimes rejected any touch he hadn't anticipated. El had no idea if it was the American's insistence on more personal space than others needed or a result of being blinded. It didn't matter, he'd learned to just wait; if he waited until Sands adjusted, Sands would slowly relax. If he didn't shove the muzzle of one of his guns up under El's chin. It paid to stay still then, too.

"But maybe he will help with the headaches, sí," El said quietly.

Sands head jerked back and his lips pressed together in a thin line. "I'm fine, it's nothing I can't handle," he hissed. "Really, having your eyes gouged out can be a headache, but that's all."

Curled in a corner like a wounded animal hiding and waiting to die, only the fast harsh breaths of pain giving him away when El came searching, wasn't handling anything. Sands might not even remember the way he shook, but El did. The headaches had hit Sands twice during their time at the village and that was once more than El wanted to ever endure again. He had wrapped his arms around Sands' too thin body and held on to keep the man from clawing at his still healing eye sockets, and crooned wordless lullabies even as Sands whimpered for death. He wouldn't take Sands' guns away - he knew Sands could find a hundred other ways to kill himself if he wanted - but he didn't want to walk into the monastery one day and find it painted with blood because the pain had finally overwhelmed the man's will to live.

"Doctor Mendoza is an expert ocularist," El told him. "There are implants that - " he frowned and tried to remember what the doctor in the village had explained, " - support the - "

"What's left," Sands supplied drily, ever so softly. His mood had shifted like quicksilver, anger draining into something miserable and shut down.

"Sí."

Sands suddenly looked drawn and vulnerable. His shoulders hunched and he turned his face away, the dark tumble of hair masking his expression. "I knew you'd get sick of it."

"Sick?" El questioned.

A gesture toward his face communicated that Sands meant his mutilation.

"The only good thing about having no eyes - I don't have to see what I look like now," he breathed bitterly.

El shifted so that his back shielded Sands from the eyes of anyone passing. He braced one hand high on the wall over Sands' shoulder. With the other, the scarred one he wore the leather gauntlet on, he traced his fingers over Sands' sharp-cut cheekbone and along the edge of his sunglasses.

"My hands do not lie," he murmured, leaning so close his breath drifted over Sands' beautiful mouth. He smelled of sandalwood and smoke, cloves, and burnt almond poison. El cupped Sands' jaw in his palm. "I will always want you as you are."

Sands laughed and tried to twist away. "What, blind and bugshit crazy? Listen, if I could see again, I would go right back to what I did before. Maybe you want me this way so I'm not a danger to your precious, cuntwhore country."

"You will always be dangerous," El stated.

Sands jerked. He drew in a harsh breath through his nose. Then that wicked, knowing smile curled his lips, and he said, "You bet your bippy, friend. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

"So do this."

"It'll take dough, lots of dough," Sands pointed out. "We're on a schedule, if you've lost track, and your little guitar-playing buddies are waiting for you to get down to Cancún and do a cancan on some cartel ass."

"It is only the first appointment," El said reasonably. He tugged Sands away from the wall and down the sidewalk. Sands followed, only a tiny frown of concentration betraying the effort it took to move so fluidly through the crowds without sight.

"You might be surprised to learn this, El, but I have been listening to the doctor, as well as thinking about what losing my pretty peepers means. The kind of stuff you're talking about is going to cost. The CIA has fanfuckingtastic medical insurance, but that does diddly for your's truly while they think I'm dead," Sands pointed out.

El smiled and assured him silkily, "We have money."

Sands cocked his head. "From El Día de los Muertos."

"Sí, Lorenzo and Fideo gave me a third of the cartel pay-off."

"Oh, that hurts." Sands tapped over his heart. "That hurts, right here, El. I had plans for that dough."

El chuckled.

"We will be late if you do not hurry." He smiled because Sands made him feel alive again. Wary and off-balance often, but that wasn't a bad thing, either. "If you are good and don't shoot the doctor, you can tell me what plans you had."

"I don't know, El," Sands said as they reached the clinic doors. "I might have to shoot him on principle. I don't like doctors."

***
Sands had stretched himself across the bed, prone, naked, cheek pillowed on his folded arms. El lay beside him, just far enough apart that sweat sticky skin didn't touch. One knee bent, foot flat against the tangled sheets. If he turned his head, he could look at Sands' face.

If he turned his head, he might wake the other man.

If Sands was a sleep. Sands kept his eyelids closed whenever the sunglasses came off. He was limp as a sleeper now, but El knew Sands might only be waiting. He fooled El sometimes when he was still and silent.

El craved silence, but not Sands' silence.

He blinked wearily at the cracked and shadowed plaster ceiling, listening to the soft whisper of Sands breathing beside him. The oppressive hours of the afternoon slid away on that drowsy rhythm. Sometimes he closed his eyes. Maybe he slept too. If so, he didn't dream, and he was grateful. He hated his dreams.

The light had changed when El left the bed and padded quietly into the bathroom to shower. The open windows let in the sound of the city, subtly attenuated by the altitude; the traffic, voices, horns, bells, dogs, and music that blended into the constant background din that was also Mexico's voice. It rushed and receded, ceaseless as the surf, muffling the soft sounds of his own movements.

He dressed and picked up Sands' clothes, folding and placing them on a rickety table beside the bed. Set them next to Sands' guns, the only thing the other man always made sure he could find. That made El smile grimly. His own guns were always within reach.

Just in case. Or in his case, in the guitar case, Sands would say.

The room's windows faced west. Long shadows crept away from the molten fire dipping down to the horizon. Saffron dust burned in the heavy light, drifting, dying sparks of fire. One slatted shutter, half-closed, striped tiger bars over the yellowed, smooth ivory of Sands' shoulders.

El paused beside the bed and looked at Sands. He traced his gaze along the sinuous line of Sands' spine, the hollowed ripple of his ribcage, along long bones made to be strummed into music and quick heat, bruise-blooms dark and damning on his hips and arms.

Beautiful, but not the way Carolina had been. Whatever it was he felt for Sands, it wasn't what he'd felt for her. He had loved his wife and child with all his soul. That soul had died with them. He didn't want to resurrect it. He and Sands weren't even friends. So what was it he felt? More than lust, lust he could slake with someone easier than Sands. Sands demanded, Sands needed, Sands was a fistful of shattered glass.

Sands had slid under El's skin and made himself a necessity.

Because Sands shuddered under El's touch as though each caress was a blow. Because Sands wasn't Carolina. Because Sands wouldn't have refused Marquez; Sands would have smiled and gone to him and cut his throat in the night. Sands wouldn't have died and Sands didn't know what guilt was. He wouldn't let El bury himself in it.

Maybe it was that simple. Sands was alive and Carolina was dead. Or maybe it was as complicated as one of Sands' plans. It didn't matter. El would hold onto Sands as long as he could.

Sands stirred and lifted his head. Spilled silk hair fell over his jaw. A faint frown drew his brows, like two strokes of ink, together. El held still as one breath followed the next, meshed with Sands, through a count of ten. Sands' whole body tightened, muscle drawing taut.

"El?"

He shifted enough for Sands to hear, then added, "Sí."

"You know, El, one of these days you'll stand there like a dumb rock, and I do mean dumb not mute, and I'll shoot you," Sands said and rolled over. He spread his arms out and stretched like a cat, his head tipped back, back bowed. His lips were parted, his eyelids still closed. Long lashes and paper-thin skin hid scar-tissued hollows. Only someone who knew what to look for would see Sands' eyelids closed over disturbing concavities. Sands relaxed, not lifting his head, and wriggled. "Yes, I'll shoot you, because I'll know it's you, my little gunbunny, and that staring thing irritates the holy fuck out of me."

"Holy fuck?" El repeated, amused. He wasn't even going to acknowledge 'gunbunny'. It was improvement over 'fretsucker', anyway. Sands was apparently feeling mellow after his siesta.

"Holy fuck," Sands echoed. He sat up and folded his legs indian-style, completely oblivious to his nudity - or just as likely, completely aware and deliberately giving El a show. A smug smile flashed white teeth. He held out one imperious hand. "Glasses."

El shook his head, found the sunglasses next to Sands' guns, and placed them in his hand. Sands slipped them on like a man donning armor, then finger-combed his hair behind his ears.

"So," he said, settling his forearms over his bent knees, "what shall we do with ourselves tonight, here at the oh so exciting Casa Cucarocha?"

"Have you seen any cockroaches, Sands?"

"Oh, very funny, El, listen, I'm the only one who gets to make bad jokes in this - " he hesitated, hands moving aimlessly, and El thought maybe the words had surprised Sands, " - partnership. Anyway, I can hear the little fuckers."

El shrugged. At first he would always stop and say something awkward in the hanging instant after he remembered Sands couldn't see him shrug. But the chains that pegged his pants close or on the cuffs of his scorpion jacket sang descant to his every movement, and Sands was a quick study, fast to interpret all of El's movements without words or sight.

Sands was clever and El would have wondered how Barillo's daughter had fooled him, if he wasn't a man too.

"Then hope your 'friend' calls soon," he said. "We should be in Cancún already."

"Well, if we were in Cancún, you couldn't have dragged me into that fumblefingered fucker's office today, could you?" Sands pointed out, teeth bared. "Telling me I can be the proud owner of two glass eyes like they'd do me any pea-picking good."

The specialist had spoke of polyacrylics and the difficulties of matching the former appearance of Sands' eyes without at least one to use as a template. Multiple surgeries to reduce the scarring and fit the artificial eyes that would fill the empty wounds. Sands had been almost silent, listening with his head tipped, long fingers drumming on one knee. El had been surprised that they had walked out leaving the doctor alive; even to him, the man had seemed patronizing. He'd seen the muscles along Sands' jaw rippling as he gritted his teeth.

Nothing had been said about the visit afterward. "Take me back to the hotel now," Sands had demanded. Inside the hotel room, he'd torn his hands down El's sides, bit and pushed and cursed, burning them both to the bone, until they collapsed side by side, satiated, on the bed.

Suddenly, Sands scrambled off the bed. One hand found the edge of the table. Then he had his clothes and began dressing. "Okay, you know, I feel like eating something. It's Mexico City, it's the capitol of this backwater joke of a country, there are restaurants where I can get something that isn't beans or rice."

"Do I have to worry about the cook?"

Sands spun around and grinned. "Now, that would be sadly predictable, my friend."

One thing that Sands wasn't, El reflected. Nothing more was to be said about the doctor's recommendations.

"Next time, you can shoot the cook," Sands offered grandly.

"Gracias."

"Now point me at the phone. I've decided we're going to El Mosaico and we'll need reservations unless I can work my magic."

El listened in surprise as Sands spoke on the phone, his Spanish fluid and his familiarity with the restaurant in question obvious. He'd thought most of Sands' 'magic' consisted of bullets or American dollars, but Sands was charming and cajoling on the phone. Soon they were on their way, assured a table would be waiting for them. The guitar case full of guns sat in the back seat.

"North African, El," Sands expounded once they were in the old convertible. "You have to try it. When I was in Marrakesh, I would have the tagine. It's a simple stew, slow cooked, with spiced meat and vegetables. I'm sure you'll like it."

El added that morsel to his store of knowledge about Sands. Sands had been in Morocco. Sands didn't answer questions, but sometimes revealed small pieces of his past when he was pleased.

"Did you ever see Casablanca?" Sands suddenly asked.

"Sí."

"Good movie," Sands said. Nothing more. El sighed. He was sure that a thread of connection ran between Sands' apparent abrupt switches in subject, but it could be exhausting trying to track it down. Sands often paused as if waiting for El to catch up.

When El didn't comment, Sands began winding the window down, abandoning the conversation.

They were in the car, Sands leaning his head out the window so the wind tore his hair loose and wild and and El wanted to grab and pull him back, when the cell phone Quin had provided began playing. El frowned, almost recognizing the tinny stretch of music. Sands fell back into the car and dug the slim instrument from his pocket, remarking, "I think I know why dogs like to do that." The giddy smile stripped off his face as he spoke into the phone. "God save the Queen, my friend, really, that is so sweet and patriotic."

Sands slouched around until his shoulders were braced against the car door and his long, denim-clad legs were stretched across the bench seat, his booted feet in El's lap. El gritted his teeth and ignored them, sure that if he tried to make Sands move, the car would end up in the ditch while Sands pitched a fit. The old car was roomy enough anyway that El could still steer.

"Listen, no, I don't care, I want copies, El can look at them," Sands said into the phone. "No, no, of course I trust you, do I look like a guy who doesn't trust people? No? Wow, did they teach you that kind of talk at Eton?"

El was tempted to pull the car over so he could watch Sands' face as he talked. The American had come alive since they left their village, humming with a febrile energy reminiscent of their first meeting. He was focused on conjuring something El could use to find Lorenzo's girl when they reached Cancún.

"So, where and when, because I'm kind of on a sort of time table here," Sands said.

El slowed the car, expecting their destination to change. A glance to the side showed him Sands' eyebrows arching.

"Oh, my Christ, does it have to be the church? Yes, I know where it is, thank you, a blind man could just follow the sound of the fucking bells." Sands pulled the cell away from his ear and mouthed something silently at it. El blew out a long breath, thinking the Brit from earlier in the day was lucky not to be in the car with them. Sands would shoot him and then apologize about the upholstery.

"Fine, listen, it's fine, we'll be there, don't get your panties in a twist," Sands said and closed the phone up. He let his head drop back and rocked one boot against the steering wheel. "You know," he said, addressing the sky as much as El, "I've known that attenuated English twit since we were both posted in Bangkok - where I saved his pasty ass on at least two occasions - and now he acts like he's doing me a favor."

"He is."

Sands shook his head. "It's a sad thing. No gratitude. Listen, did I double-cross you? Did I double-cross anyone? If you'll think about it carefully, my friend, you'll see that I only offered everyone exactly what they wanted. So I wanted to make a small profit at the same time; is that so awful? I'm a CIA agent - well, I was - they hired me because I'm sneaky and ruthless and don't mind taking candy from babies."

"People don't like being manipulated," El commented.

"Oh, gee, El, you don't say."

El slowed the car as they approached an intersection.

"Where do we go?"

"The Zócalo. We are going to church, my friend, where I am sure one of us shall surely burst into blasphemous flame as soon as we step foot inside."

"I go to Church." A habit he continued out of respect for the padre in the village. His faith had long since burnt to ashes.

Sands laughed.

"Of course, you do, the Pope's got all you Mexicans by the short'n'curlies. Well, it may surprise you, El, but I used to go to church." Sands' mouth thinned and his expression went cold. "I was once an altar boy."

He jack-knifed his boots out of El's lap and swung himself into a sitting position.

"Good old Father Alejandro," Sands said. He smiled a mirthless, feral smile as the name rolled off his tongue. He slid one of his guns out of the holster and began fingering it lovingly, stroking the barrel. "Why, I haven't thought of him in years."

His tone made El shiver.

El was no innocent. He had little use for the Church at all, though he had tried to hold onto his faith in God. He knew many priests broke their vows or worse. Few men were as good as the padre of Villa Perdidos.

He wished fervently that Sands still had his eyes. He wanted - needed - to see the expression that went with his words. El hadn't always been able to read the eyes of others, but he'd learned. He thought if he could have looked into Sands' eyes he would know if the thing he suspected had happened to him. But Sands was forever hidden behind his sunglasses.

"It's all a con, El. Take Father Alejandro. Spent his days drinking wine and diddling unhappy wives."

El let out a harsh breath in relief. Sands' faced him, expression opaque.

"Were you thinking maybe he diddled me?" he asked, brows arching, face assuming an exaggerated mime of inquiry.

"Priests are men," El said. "Men with power."

"And power corrupts, no kidding, El," Sands said. "Well, Father Alejandro wasn't a kiddiefucker, just a spineless adulterer. If he'd touched me instead of my dear mother, Big Jeff Sands would have used a shotgun on him instead of his fists and the good people of Austin would have thrown him a party afterwards."

El nodded.

El tried to take the cell phone. Sands jerked it away. "How the fuck do I know what they look like, limpdick?"

El reached for the phone again and Sands swatted at his arm, then asked in an undertone, "Hey, what was the girl wearing, anyway?"

"A yellow dress," El said.

"Listen, you dolt, even you should be able to spot this little hussy. She's got a yellow dress on, probably tighter than a virgin's back door, and her and the boyfriend are going to lead us right to the guy we want," Sands told Lorenzo. "So don't blow it and charge in like some feebleminded hero, okay? First we find out if the chilito is around, then we rescue the fucking maiden fair. Comprende?"

He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Oh, and fuck you too," he muttered, before snapping it closed and shoving it into his coat pocket.

"You shouldn't taunt Lorenzo so much," El said.

"You know, El, I do know a little psychology, and as long as Lorenzo is busy being pissed at me, he isn't crying into his cerveza over Señorita Saint Anna," Sands said. He shrugged. "And he's easy. Fideo's usually too drunk to care what I say and you - you just - nothing touches you."

El said nothing but nudged Sands' boot with his.

Sands stretched his legs out, knocking the silver toe-tip of one of his black cowboy boots - purchased in Mexico City - against the single spur that decorated El's heel. A tiny adjustment and the rowel spun and rang. El rocked his heel back and braked the spur against the scarred floor, silencing it.

Sands smiled sweetly at him. "See?"

El narrowed his eyes at the other man. "See what?"

"You don't even get pissed."

"You're wrong."

Sands' eyebrows arched above the rims of his oil-black plastic sunglasses. "I'm never wrong," he said.

"You're an idiot," El replied.

Sands appeared to consider that. Finally, he shook his head. "No, though I can see how you might think so, since I'm here with you, getting ready to take on another fucking cartel, just so your little pal can have his girlfriend back. That does look sort of stupid."

El's humor faded away. "Why are you doing this, Sands?"

Sands found his sweating bottle of beer and turned it aimlessly.

"What else have I got to do?" He picked at the damp label with his fingernails. "The ever-loving truth is Quin has it right. I can't take 'normal' life. I get bored." He shrugged. "When I get bored, I get in trouble." A smile flashed white in the shadows. "Or I make trouble."

"So it's just a game to you?"

"Until it turns around and bites me in the ass."

"Like in Culiacan, on the Day of the Dead."

Sands twisted away from El for a breath. The dusty light traced a carved cheekbone pale as the curved bone of the skull beneath the skin. Then he smiled again, that half-mad, half-haunted smile that made something in El ache.

"Trusting Ajedrez would definitely qualify as screwing myself over to get screwed, I think. Looks like I lost that game, but she lost bigger."

El shook his head. Sands killed people and it was just a game. The man was insane.

"The day you take it serious, El, that's the day they've got you," Sands said suddenly. "That's what you've got to remember."

"A man who wants nothing is invincible," El quoted.

"Well, at least he won't care when he gets blown away," Sands said judiciously.

El laughed. There was nothing else he could do.

***
Sands found his way down to the hotel bar and a table in a corner. Fideo had still been sleeping off the night before when he crawled out of bed. Sands had heard the distinctive snore in the next room, while El and Lorenzo had disappeared early, off to scope out Bautista's estate. That had been the plan, anyway.

He sat and smoked, desultorily sipping a tequila and listening as the bar filled and emptied out over the lunch hour. Fragments of conversation, lifted voices and curiously penetrating whispers reached him. He paid only enough attention to know they weren't about him or anything of interest.

What the hell was he doing here?

The question circled round and round in his thoughts. He'd already fucked up once and paid royally. Why push his luck by coming here with El?

He should leave.

El didn't get it. He didn't have a clue about people like Abe Heller or Veronica or even Sands himself. Not really. Chucho and even Bautista, El knew how to handle them. Spooks were something different. There was a lot more going on here than some cartel gunman coincidentally deciding he wanted the same woman as Lorenzo. It just felt wrong, all of it.

He lit another cigarette, careful not to burn his fingertips. The harsh, hot taste of the smoke was as familiar as his skin, a part of himself that hadn't been ripped away or reshaped after the Day of the Dead.

El didn't feel it, like a noose tightening around his neck, but Sands did. The big problem was he couldn't tell if the trap was meant for him or for El. Either way, he knew the smart move would be to get out while he still could.

He exhaled the smoke through his nose.

Fuck, he didn't know himself anymore.

What the hell was he still doing here?

***
"Well, well, " Heller said to himself in singsong tone as he closed his cell phone. "Well, well, well, well." One of his men had come across something interesting and sent him a picture. "If it isn't little Jeffy Sands. Finally learned to sit with your back to the wall."

He snapped his fingers at Manolo.

"Sí, señor?"

"Where's Chucho?"

"With Señor Bautista."

Heller huffed in frustration.

"Fine. Get a couple of men," he directed. "We're going to go pick up my old pal Jeffy and find out what the hell he's doing down here in Chiapas." He headed for the door.

Manolo didn't move.

"Hey!" Heller said. "Come on."

Manolo shook his head. "I think I better wait for Chucho."

"You think? You don't fucking think, you follow orders and I just gave you one," Heller hissed.

"I don't take orders from you, señor."

Heller shrugged and turned back toward the door. His hand snaked under his jacket and he pulled out his pistol. He turned around and shot Manolo three times in the chest. Manolo's legs folded under him and he hit the floor. His eyes were wide and already dimming as Heller walked over and knelt beside him.

He patted Manolo's cheek until his eyes rolled toward Heller. "You listening, Manolo?"

A slow blink was his only answer, but Heller didn't mind. He considered the blood frothing from Manolo's mouth. He'd hit a lung with one of his shots.

He set the muzzle of his gun against Manolo's forehead.

"I think you should have followed my orders, pal," he said and pulled the trigger one more time.

***
Sands knew something was wrong when the bar went quiet. Instead of trying to get out himself, he lit another cigarette. A blind man had fuck-all chance of sneaking anywhere, so he'd just hold onto his dignity instead. He flicked the safety off the gun he held under the table.

He inhaled and cocked his head, trying just for the hell of it to count how many men had come in. The swift exit of the bar's other patrons confused the issue. Five, he thought.

A squeak of rubber on tile made him revise his estimate. Athletic shoes made that sound on nice clean floors. Six then. He felt a little sick. Half a dozen, all for him, and once upon a time that wouldn't have been enough.

Sands controlled a shiver and brought his cigarette to his mouth as the man in the athletic shoes sat down opposite him.

He definitely should have taken a taxi to the airport in Cancún and hopped a flight to anywhere. Anywhere but here, sitting across a table from the only guy he knew who always wore those damn shoes, along with that hounds-tooth-checked golfing cap. The sonovabitch had even worn it in the jungle and when it got wet it reeked worse than a wet sheep.

"Hey there, Jeffy," Heller said amiably.

"Long time no see, Abe," Sands replied, lacing his words with bitter irony. Not long enough, he didn't say. He knew Heller heard it anyway.

"Well, that's the way it goes in our line of work."

Sands inhaled another lung full of smoke. "Golly, it pains me to admit it, but I didn't miss you a bit."

"So what brings you down to Chiapas?"

He shrugged. "A car."

One of Heller's men had sidled up next to Sands. He smelled like garlic chorizo and Old Spice and sweat. Sands didn't betray by a twitch that he was aware of him.

"A car?" Heller had a loud laugh, a little nasal. He slapped his thigh with an audible sound. "You're a card, Jeff."

"Yeah, a regular joker in the deck."

Heller's voice went hard and serious, "Well, Jeffy, that's problem, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"We just can't afford a wild card like you floating around, maybe messing things up."

Sands tapped ash into the ashtray he'd set into a memorized place when he sat down. "I don't suppose that if I assured you I have no interest in whatever you've got going with Bautista …?" He waited, then forced a smile. "No?"

"No."

"That's really too bad," Sands said. He fired once at Heller and twisted sideways to put a round through the belly of the man next to him. He heard Heller's chair go out from under him, and a yell. Then hard hands were tearing at him, grabbing his shoulder, and he emptied the rest of the clip into whoever was closest to him.

"Don't kill him!" he heard Heller shout. That pissed Sands off and he fought harder, using every dirty trick he'd ever known, including many that Heller had taught him. The crack of a nose against the heel of his hand preceded the satisfying push-slide of bone and broken cartilage shoving straight into some thug's brain. He was taking punishment too, though, and overwhelmed by sheer weight.

Within minutes, he was pinned down.

His sunglasses were gone and he squeezed his eyelids shut out of habit. Hands wrapped around his wrists, a heavy - maybe dead - body weighed down his legs, and a knee was pressed into his chest so that he couldn't breathe.

He heaved against his captors, but it was useless.

A hand brushed hair off his face. Sands froze.

"Open your eyes, Jeffy."

"Fuck off."

A rough finger and thumb jabbed into his eyesocket and peeled the lid open. One of the men holding his arms cursed. The hand left his face and Sands rolled his face away.

"My, my, my," Heller said. "Would you look at that."

***
Fideo intercepted El and Lorenzo before they could walk back into the hotel. He flattened his palm against El's chest and shook his head. El stopped in his tracks.

He looked past Fideo's shoulder and his eyes narrowed. An ambulance was parked in front of the hotel, along with three marked police cars, the sun gleaming painfully bright off polished hoods and roofs and glass.

He looked for a shadow and found only the unforgiving brightness.

His eyes returned to Fideo's set face. A hollow opened inside his chest.

"Sands?"

Fideo glanced back. The smoked-glass hotel doors opened and two uniformed technicians pushed out a gurney with a black body bag on it. Another followed, carrying another body. El ignored the glare and watched as the gurneys were loaded into the ambulance. No one was in any hurry. The technicians strolled back inside and brought out another victim in few minutes.

El rasped out a single word.

"Meurte?"

Lorenzo grabbed his arm. El didn't realized he'd taken a step forward until he felt Fideo pushing him back.

"Gone," Fideo said. He was still sober, despite the hour. He didn't even smell of tequila.

"I should have - "

"Gone," Fideo repeated. "I couldn't find the gringo, just those three - " he nod toward the ambulance departing with the bodies, "- and these." He pulled Sands' sunglasses from inside his jacket and offered them. "He isn't dead or they would have left him too."

El folded his fingers around the plastic.

Lorenzo took a step back.

He said hoarsely, "Anna?"

"The girl from Cancún?"

"Sí."

La Araña hesitated, her gaze moving to El's, then said, "She is dead."

"No!"

El tossed one gun on the bed, where a stripe of sunlight made the faded pattern of red and brown stripes almost glow, and grasped Lorenzo's shoulder, pulling him close.

"No," Lorenzo repeated.

"Chucho?" Fideo asked softly.

"Chucho."

Lorenzo tore himself away from El. His face was set, despite the tears sliding down his cheeks. "I want him dead," he snarled. "I want him to die looking in my eyes. I'm going to kill him."

"Where is she?" El asked. He ignored Lorenzo ranting and pacing behind him.

La Araña looked at Lorenzo dubiously. "You don't want him to hear."

El narrowed his eyes. She licked her lips, the first thing she'd done that betrayed any nerves. With a jerk of his head toward Lorenzo, El directed Fideo to look out for him. He slipped one gun up his sleeve and retrieved the other from the bed, tucking it away too. Fideo brushed past him and began nodding in a agreement with Lorenzo. El followed La Araña out the door into the shadowy hall, while Fideo dealt with Lorenzo.

"Tell me," he commanded.

She leaned back against the wall and swallowed hard. In the half light, only the whites of her eyes shone clearly, a flash that dimmed as she dipped her eyelids closed.

"Pigs."

He didn't understand.

She opened her eyes and met El's gaze.

"Pigs," she said again. "Chucho took the body away and fed it to the pigs at a farm that doubles as one of Bautista's safehouses. He's used it before. It's neat. There are no bodies to show up. Just don't eat the pork at La Mariposa."

El stumbled back against the peeling papered wall, sickened. He tasted bile as he thought of the hungry swine grunting and pushing until they'd torn what was left of Anna Serrano to pieces and consumed them.

"Madre de Díos."

"Chucho's in Tijuana now," La Araña said. She pulled a folded piece of yellow paper from her pocket and offered it to El. "If you don't want your gringo friend to end up like the girl, you'll be here tomorrow at noon."

El looked at the paper suspiciously.

"Just make sure someone sees you and lives to tell about it," she added.

He still didn't take the paper.

"Or you can go after Chucho. The blind man, he is a hard one too, maybe he'll hold out another few days. Or Señor Heller will kill him. If he's lucky."

A rough, whispered word slipped out. "Lucky?"

"Bautista's bitch talks about what they're doing to him."

El tightened his hand into a fist. Sands …

"Why tomorrow?"

La Araña stepped away from the wall, straightening her shoulders. Her chin came up. She looked nothing like the cheap coke whore he'd seen in the bar. El wondered at her, at how she'd learned to play a role. But not at why she was willing to live it.

"Today the arms shipment Bautista promised us was delivered, paid for with money made because our people protected his operation. Tomorrow, we revolt and take over the government and the oil fields. If Bautista is alive after that, he will betray us."

He could almost see how it all fitted together, each side of the triangle always intending to betray the others, each one thinking the second didn't know about the third. Sands would have loved it.

"That is the CIA's plan, the one this Heller brought to him months ago."

El crossed his arms and indicated that he was still listening.

"He isn't like the other cartel leaders, he has contacts within the government. Troops will be sent in to put down the 'revolt'." La Araña's voice hardened into ice. "El Presidente will believe Bautista has saved Chiapas from the terrible rebels and give him control."

"The President is a good man - "

"He is a fool," she snapped. "Good? Perhaps. That means nothing. He will not even realize what has happened here until Bautista's power base is too strong to overthrow. If he does … a convenient death can always be bought."

El flinched.

"Can't it?"

'Oh, no, no, no, the President will be killed. Because he's that piece of good pork that needs to get balanced out.' Sands' words. The CIA's plan. If he hadn't heard El Presidente speak, El would have pulled the trigger himself. It was true; death was easily bought. It was cheap. El had been willing to sell it for nothing but revenge.

La Araña was offering him more than that. Pull the trigger … and get Sands back.

He snatched the paper from her fingers.

"We're on."

***
"Do you know what I'm going to do to you, Jeffy?"

Heller pressed the lit cigarette into the tender skin inside Sands' elbow, lingering until the smell of burning flesh signaled that the skin was gone. Sands jerked into wakefulness again, straining rigidly against the ropes binding him in place.

"Did you hear me, Jeffy?"

His mouth was so dry he couldn't do more than whisper.

"Fuck off ...."

"Good, good, you're listening," Heller said. His breath touched Sands' face, smelling of coffee and sausage and the spearmint gum Heller chewed sometimes. Sands' might have thrown up right in his face, if there had been anything left in him but bile. As it was, he couldn't even spit.

His mind had been drifting despite Heller's interrogation techniques. He remembered color. He thought he did. Maybe it was only the idea of color he remembered, now that he couldn't experience it.

Red now … red was …

The slap wasn't that hard, just enough to focus him again.

"Keep listening, Jeffy."

Heller twined his fingers in Sands' hair and jerked his head back. "I'm going to take my time," he said. "I'm going to start with you feet. Lots of bones in your feet, Jeffy. I'm going to break them all. Then I'm going to do your knees."

The cold that slid through Sands' veins had nothing to do with the pain that would come. He'd thought after being blinded that he had nothing more to fear. He was already crippled. Now he understood there were degrees of mutilation, degrees of injury and disability that he hadn't plumbed.

"Then I'm going to do your hands, Jeffy. When I'm all done, a couple of Ping-Pong paddles will be more use than your hands. Are you getting the picture, pal?" Heller stopped and laughed. "That's right. No pictures for Jeffy, sweet Sonia Barillo made sure of that, didn't she?"

Sands jerked in the chair. The ropes cut deep into his wrists, fresh blood dripping down his numb fingers. He didn't feel it.

"Sonia Barillo," Heller said thoughtfully. "That was a hot piece of ass you were dipping your wick in, Jeffy. 'Course you didn't know who she really was, did you?"

Sands felt something, something like the earth dropping out from beneath his feet, like freefall.

"Background check on Agent Ajedrez came back clean as a whistle, didn't it?" Heller mused.

Oh, my Christ.

"Veronica figured the Barillos would get rid of you for us, but you're just like a fucking cockroach, aren't you, Jeffy?"

Ajedrez. They knew about Ajedrez.

"Nothing to say, pal? That's okay, I'm having fun here anyway."

I never saw it.

The irony followed him into unconsciousness much, much later.

***
Esteban Bautista watched Blanca leave the bed and walk away, admiring the tangled but shining blonde hair, the sunburst tattooed between her shoulder blades and the twin dimples above her ass. She moved with the sleek muscled ease of a feline, in bed and out.

She returned, unconcerned by her nudity, with two crystal tumblers in hand. Water in one and good Scotch in the other that she handed to him. A fine gloss of sweat made her skin gleam like white marble. She was a genuine blonde, as pale below as above.

He sipped the Scotch.

"Tell me, what has Heller found out from this Sands?"

Blanca grimaced and slipped on the brightly flowered silk robe tossed over a chaise lounge.

"Nothing. He isn't even trying."

She pulled her hair free of the collar and belted the robe. Distaste marked her expression.

"What?"

Blanca picked up her tumbler and sipped the water, then set the heavy crystal down on a side table. She walked back over to the bed and knelt on it.

"He's just torturing him. Promising to leave him alive, but completely crippled." She shrugged, a ripple of silk and muscle that made Esteban's groin tighten all over again. "It's personal between those two. Heller doesn't care about what Sands knows, just breaking him."

"Has he?"

"Not yet." Blanca quirked her lips into something that approximated a smile, but wasn't. She reached forward and ran her hand down Esteban's chest. "I think we should keep him alive."

Esteban caught her hand and nipped her finger tips. Blanca pulled free and sat back on her heels. The robe gaped open, wanting to slip off her shoulder. He wanted to pull it off her, drive into her, until she was more than just disheveled on the outside, until the ice inside her melted.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

"We can't rely on Heller. He betrayed this Sands. He'll betray you, Esteban. You know that," she answered.

"Sí, but I needed the CIA's cooperation."

She nodded.

"Sands was CIA too. He probably knows as much as Heller," she said, "and he may be smart and tough, but he's still blind. We could control him."

"Better than Heller."

He considered it. The blind man might be an asset. Under the circumstances, it might be useful to keep him. He could never be the threat Heller was. Heller had always been slated for disposal, of course. With the arms deal concluded and the Zapatistas in place, it was time.

He let himself smile.

"Sí. Take care of it," he said. "Today."

"And Sands?"

He shrugged.

"Offer him a job, if he's still alive. You're right, he could be useful."

***
Heller had always had a sixth sense for danger. He'd always listened to it. That's why he was still alive.

Today was the day of the revolt and the air felt heavy with sticky heat and tension already.

He'd checked in with Veronica on the phone and received her okay to take Sands out. It was a good time to do it. That way the body could be found and shipped back to the States. If Sands had any family that gave a damn, they wouldn't be asking questions. His death could be blamed on the Zapatistas.

He was heading for his car when all his inner alarms went off.

Heller didn't stop to analyze what was happening. He ducked for cover, grabbing for his own gun. The first bullet should have caught him in the chest. Instead a shard of pulverized brick ricocheted from the wall he'd been standing in front of a moment before. As he dodged into a doorway, he caught a glimpse of blond hair in the sun.

"Sonovabitch!"

Bautista had got the jump on him, the canny bastard. That was Blanca.

Well, that put a different spin on things. Sands would have to wait. Bautista might take care of the little shit anyway, but somehow, Heller knew the cocky bastard would slick his way out some way. They'd run into each other again. Meanwhile, it was time for Abe Heller to get the hell out of Dodge. Sands was a fine example of just what could happen to a man the cartels had turned on.

Heller meant to keep all his important parts.

He pegged a couple of shots toward where he'd seen Blanca, jerked the door behind him open, and dashed inside.

Good thing he was always prepared for the sugar to turn to shit. Another bullet shattered the glass window behind him.

He ran.

***
"Heller got away," Blanca said.

The sound of gunfire, of mortars and rockets, even the deeper reports of artillery thundered from town. It had been expected. The gunfire just outside the gates of the estate, or even within it already, hadn't. Esteban shook his head at his own naïveté. He had expected the CIA to betray their agreement. Why hadn't he anticipated the Zapatistas would turn on him?

He heard a shotgun fired twice down stairs. Rapid automatic fire and handguns mixed with the bark of a simple hunting rifle and the distinctive clatter of Uzis.

"Heller doesn't matter now," he said. He headed for his safe.

"Go get Maria Teresa and meet me at the helicopter pad. We will evacuate and regroup."

He tapped in the security code, not bothering to hide it from Blanca. It would be a moot point, since this place and this safe would be abandoned after today.

"Go!" he commanded.

The blond woman whirled and headed for his wife's wing of the house. Esteban pulled large, accordion-style case from the bottom of the safe and began loading it with stacks of money and Maria Teresa's jewels. When it would hold no more, he stuffed a few more packets of notes into his pockets, added the mini-disks and keys that would let him access his accounts and business dealings from anywhere, and headed for the rooftop helipad where his pilot had the Bell helicopter ready.

He glanced at the slim watch on his wrist and noted the time. He would give Blanca and Maria Teresa five minutes. Less, if the fighting reached the roof.

***
Lorenzo ran ahead of them, Fideo loping after him, trying to watch his friend's back and his own at the same time.

El calmly shot one of Bautista's soldiers and turned to the woman beside him. He leveled the sawed off shotgun over her shoulder and shot another, then broke it open and knocked the empty casings out. She flinched a little at the loud report next to her ear.

"Warn me next time, I'll duck," she said.

El looked at her under his brows. "There won't be a next time," he said darkly. He fished two shells from his belt and fed them into the shotgun, then aimed it at her chest.

"Where is Sands?"

La Araña looked slightly taken aback, but rallied. "Bautista first."

"Sands."

"Downstairs - "

The rattle of an Uzi close by interrupted her. They both spun as Fideo and Lorenzo's guns joined in. Then Fideo shouted and El knew something was wrong. He sprinted down a wide hall decorated with bronze statuary and into what must have been a conservatory.

A look told him too much.

Fideo was on the floor, cradling Lorenzo's limp body. One hand was threaded into Lorenzo's blood soaked hair, holding up his head. A few feet away, a woman with long dark hair sprawled face down. Blood pooled around her torso and spread from the stained hole an exiting bullet had torn through her back. A machine pistol was still clutched in one of her manicured hands.

"Lori, Lori, ah, Lori," Fideo murmured.

The rest of the room was empty.

El walked in with measured steps, chains chiming with each one. He crouched, one knee bent, one on the bloody tile, and set his hand against Lorenzo's cheek. He bent his head. Under his fingers, Lorenzo was still warm, stubble rasping against El's palm, sticky with blood. He slid his hand down Lorenzo's throat, trying to find a pulse that he knew wasn't there.

Nothing.

Behind them, La Araña paced into the room. She paused beside them briefly, still cradling a AK-47 in the crook of her arm, and looked down. El caught her eye, but no emotion showed. Her look was one of acknowledgement, not compassion.

She walked on to the dead woman and rolled her over to look at her face.

"Maria Teresa," La Araña said.

"Bautista's wife," El said.

"Sí."

"What happened?" he asked Fideo.

"Lori went in first," Fideo said simply. "There were two women. He wouldn't shoot a woman. She - " he nodded toward the corpse of Maria Teresa, " - shot him once. I came in and shot her. The other woman, the blonde, emptied a clip into Lori. "

The bone-rattling vibration of a helicopter taking off echoed down from the roof. La Araña lifted her eyes and cursed.

"Bautista!"

She ran to the glass doors and shoved them open, bolting out onto the terrace. She lifted the AK-47 to her shoulder and emptied it skyward, toward the departing helicopter.

El didn't care.

He rested his bloody hand on Fideo's shoulder and squeezed.

"I have to find Sands."

Fideo looked up. His eyes were wet, narrowed against the tears, and his mouth quivered before he spoke. "I know."

El squeezed again. "Can you get him out of here?"

"Sí."

"We'll bury himself someplace where we can remember him," El promised and got to his feet.

There was still fighting throughout the estate between the Zapatista rebels and the cartel soldiers. He didn't care. Downstairs. He went, killing anyone who tried to interfere.

***
The hands on his bonds weren't a man's. The perfume getting up his nose sure as hell didn't belong on a guy either. Damned nice, Sands thought groggily. Except for the curl of gun smoke threaded through it. That belonged on El …

The slap that came next wasn't as pleasant.

"What the hell?" he croaked.

Whoever she was, she was strong, dragging him to his feet.

"Come on!"

"Yeah, right, why the hell should I -"

The hot muzzle of a gun, still reeking of cordite from being fired recently was jammed up under his chin.

Sands held out his just freed hands and waved them a little. "Okay, okay, who am I to look a gift rescue in the mouth - "

"Shut up, Sands," she hissed. A hand latched on to his wrist, almost making him cry out in pain from the raw weals there, and jerked. "The only reason you're alive is to help me find Heller. Señor Bautista's wife is dead, but he may forgive me if I get Heller for him. As long as you help me do do that, I'll keep you alive."

He stumbled after her, jerked along like dog on a leash. Without warning they were going up a set of stairs. Sands stumbled and almost fell, catching at the wall with his free hand. Gunfire sounded close and near, the echoes disorienting him. He kept up, because he knew this woman would kill him if he didn't.

Besides, he had no objections to killing Abe Heller. It sounded like the best idea of all time to him.

At least he had a hell of better chance of getting himself out of this alive than he had had five minutes ago.

"So who's doing the shooting?" he gasped out.

"Zapatistas."

He didn't have the breath to laugh.

Suddenly, he was knocked into the wall by her shoulder. She began firing at someone. The characteristic sound told him the gun she'd threatened him with before was an Uzi. She was good with it, firing three shot bursts, not just holding down the trigger and hosing things until the clip ran out.

Someone screamed

A thud followed.

His rescuer grabbed his hand this time. "Come on."

"Quit yapping, Sands," Blanca said from behind him. "Chucho, drop the bitch, we need to finish this and head for Tampico."

"Just let me take care of the Fed and my little chica here," Chucho said.

"Oh, no. No, that isn't going to happen this time, Chucho," Ramirez said. "I said to let her go."

Chucho giggled. "What, or you'll shoot me?"

"Yes."

"Blanca?"

"Got it," she said. "Sands, keep your gun on Heller."

Oh, like he needed to be told that. Since when was he on Blanca and Chucho's side, though? They probably didn't realize he had a past with Ramirez, even if the sonovobitch had left him to die on the street.

He felt Blanca moving, knew she was about to pop Ramirez, and thought he should probably interfere. The instant his gun shifted off-line from Heller and Chucho, though, he knew the other agent would be moving. He didn't dare. Sands gritted his teeth.

"Put the gun down - " That was Ramirez.

Blanca didn't, of course.

Three gunshots, so fast Sands couldn't tell who pulled the trigger.

A body hit the floor.

He waited, wondering who bought it.

***
The blond gringa dropped her gun and folded down to the ground. A look of shock softened her features and she clutched at the two bullet wounds. She looked at Ramirez in disbelief.

"Bastard," she breathed before the last life fled from her pale blue eyes.

Ramirez spun around, looking for the two CIA agents and Chucho, trying to find Reyes. He froze.

Chucho had Grace's arm and was trying to drag her closer to him. She was clutching the bar and fighting him. A few feet away, Heller, the black man with the houndstooth cap and soul patch, held up both hands and laughed, white teeth flashing. At the apex of the triangle stood Sands, like an image of death, black clothes, black sunglasses, black gun moving between Heller and Chucho. Heller's hands were empty. Chucho held a knife and had a gun shoved in his waistband.

"You can take out Chucho or you can take out me," Heller taunted. "Can't get us both."

"You throw the gun away, gringo, or I cut the woman into shreds, just like that bitch in Chiapas," Chucho hissed. He jerked on Grace's arm again and she lost her grip on the bar and screamed, stumbling toward Chucho.

Just like that, Sands' aim shifted and he fired. Three holes bloomed, one just under Chucho's eye and two in his chest. Heller was already running. Sands turned the gun toward him, but the gun was dry and just clicked when Sands pulled the trigger.

Grace wrestled her way free of Chucho's dead body and kicked it. "Fucker! Chingado tu madre! "

Sands dropped the empty gun and twisted his head toward Ramirez as he approached. He swayed but didn't move as Ramirez shoved the muzzle of his own weapon into the skin behind Sands' ear.

"Another clever CIA plan, hey, Sands?" Ramirez snarled. "You call this inter-agency cooperation?" He gestured at the woman and Chucho's corpses and the exit Heller had disappeared through.

"I'm not CIA anymore, Jorge," Sands breathed, apparently amused; his lips turned up in a growing smile. "I'm retired."

"Agents don't retire, Sands," Ramirez replied. "Remember? They just take it a little easier."

Sands laughed. "Believe me, amigo, nothing has been easy since the Day of the Dead."

"I should just kill you now."

The muzzle of a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun nudged cold and unforgiving against Ramirez' temple. The bar reeked of spent gunpowder, adrenaline sweat, stale beer, and body fluids: blood and piss and the telltale shit-stink of a gut wound - the last two bullets he put in the blond gringa, before she went down. Ramirez' muscles wanted to shake in the aftermath of the fight. He was too damn old for gunfights in Tijuana bars. Too slow to sense the approach of another threat before it was digging the muzzle of a gun into his skin. He wanted to curse and bit it back, waiting.

"If you try to do that, I will have to kill you," a Mexican accented voice stated.

Ramirez slid his eyes sidewise without lifting his gun from Sands' head. He recognized the big man from the Presidential Palace in Culiacan. It was the silent one who had shot Barillo and saved him on El Día de los Muertos. The man who had killed General Marquez and saved the President of Mexico from a coup.

It was El Mariachi.

Another one of Sands' puppets from that bloody day. Ramirez wondered why El Mariachi would stop him from pulling the trigger. Unless the man simply didn't know who it was Ramirez had at gunpoint.

"Do you know who this is?" he asked.

"Sí," the Mariachi said.

Ramirez pulled his revolver back and stepped away from Sands. El Mariachi tracked him with the shotgun until he reached Grace's side. Then he stepped into Ramirez' spot next to Sands, who hadn't moved, hadn't even turned his head.

"About time you showed up, El," Sands complained lightly. "We had to start the party without you."

"So I see," the Mariachi commented.

Sands sidled a step closer to the Mariachi, who settled an arm around the black-clad killer's waist in a clearly possessive move. Ramirez' eyes widened. He glanced at Sands, expecting the man to jerk free. Instead, Sands was melting as close to El Mariachi as he could, head dropping against the taller man's shoulder.

"Never again," El said to Sands. "You never walk into a trap without me again."

Sands barely lifted his head. "Heller got away. I want to kill that fuckmook. Those piss-sucking, limpdick asswipes at Langley set me up."

El cocked his head. "Sands …"

"Lorenzo's girl's dead," Sands mumbled against El's shirt front. Standing so close to the looming Mariachi, Sands was too skinny and clearly exhausted, trembling with it, not the man Ramirez remembered. "That was a really fucked up plan, El. Next time listen to me, okay?"

"It was your plan," El murmured.

"It would have worked if Heller wasn't a doublecrossing, chickenchoking piece of donkey snot," Sands almost whined. He straightened and pulled away from El.

The Mariachi kept his hand on the small of Sands' back, though. "And I wanted to give Lorenzo and Fideo the information and get out. That was my plan. Let someone else get shot at and beaten up. "

The door to the bar creaked open and all of them except Sands turned toward the square of light and the silhouette in it.

"Did you find - ?" the curly-haired young man asked in a slur of soft Spanish. His eyes settled on El and the black-clad man next to him. "Sands."

El nodded. "And Chucho."

The newcomer strode in and past them to Chucho's corpse. He hawked a gob of spit into the dead man's eyes. "For Lorenzo and Anna," he hissed, then looked up.

"Let's go, then. " He ignored Ramirez and Grace.

"Not yet," El said quietly. He looked at Ramirez, eyes full of recognition and questions. "Who are you?"

Sands slid the empty gun into his belt and reached across El to tug the shotgun down. "That's Ramirez. I don't know what he's doing in Tijuana or who the babe is, but I don't think we want to kill them, El," he said, surprising Ramirez.

El's eyes told Ramirez that would change in an instant if he lifted so much as a threatening finger toward Sands. Ramirez wasn't as angry as he'd been moments before, anyway. He'd thought Sands was with Heller and Chucho, but that clearly wasn't the case. He wondered about the blond gringa shooter, though.

Sands let go of El's arm. He turned his head from side to side, then sucked in a breath. "Lorenzo?"

"Muerte," El replied.

"Stupid crazy guitar players," Sands muttered. His hands clenched and unclenched.

Grace stepped forward a pace and said, "I'm Grace Reyes. I'm a reporter - "

Sands twitched. "Oh, that's just peachy keen," he muttered.

"And you're Sands. And El Mariachi," she finished. She looked at the young man who walked in last with an inquiring smile.

He just gave her a sleepy look and walked over to the bar, where he liberated a bottle of tequila. Sands cocked his head. "Fideo, you selfish, fifty-peso fuck, if you're starting to drink, bring me some tequila, too."

Fideo snagged a second bottle.

"What are you doing here?" El asked. "Why was Chucho after you?" His brooding gaze switched from Ramirez to Grace. "Unless it was you - ? No?"

Grace wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. "It was all three of us. I was stupid, I wanted the story of El Día de los Muertos and I never guessed anyone would be following me. They killed the boy's parents and would have killed us if Mr. Ramirez hadn't helped us get away."

"Cartel," El breathed.

Ramirez nodded.

Sands had stiffened. One hand latched onto El's belt. "What boy?" he demanded, in a low dangerous voice.

"The boy that was on the street last time I saw you," Ramirez said harshly.

Sands actually seemed to get paler. "Chiclet?"

Ramirez snorted and a rumble of laughter escaped the Mariachi. "I wasn't in any goddamned state to get his name," Sands protested. "You know, bad day, busy trying to bleed to death, remember, El?"

"He wasn't there when I found you," El said.

Sands shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, I told him to fuck off. I didn't want him hanging around, in case any more cartelistas showed up or some of Marquez' tin soldiers. I wasn't doing too good anyway." Ramirez was startled to realize that Sands had let him walk away without asking for help, without expecting it from anyone else, and then sent the boy away too. Sands had been, in his peculiar fashion, trying to spare the kid.

Fideo took a pull off one bottle of tequila and strolled over to Sands. He caught Sands' free hand and wrapped it around the second bottle. "Can we get out of here now?"

"We should get back to Pablito," Grace said. "He's alone and scared and needs to know Chucho can't hurt anyone anymore." She glanced at Sands. "I should thank you for killing him."

"No, you shouldn't," Sands said quickly. "I didn't do it for you."

He took a swig of tequila and started to take a second, but El snatched the bottle away. "You have enough bruises," El said quietly. "You don't need more."

"It's the Mariachi motherhen again," Sands muttered, but offered no more protest. One hand was still threaded into El's belt. He followed El as the guitar player headed out the back.

Fideo waved his tequila bottle at Ramirez and Grace. "Come on. He wants to get some place safe enough he can make sure that Blanca bitch and the rest of the cartel bastards didn't do too much damage to his gringo."

Ramirez shook his head.

Sands and the Mariachi.

No one was ever who you thought they were, not all the time.

***
Sands followed El out the back of the nightclub. His heart was hammering. His fingers were locked on the back of El's heavy belt. He couldn't peel them loose.

He stumbled on a step in the doorway and El caught him, pushing Sands back against a wall almost brutally. The stucco was painfully hot against his shoulder blades, even through his shirt and sport coat, burning into every raw wound on his back. He gasped, before slumping back. The afternoon sun burned against his face.

El leaned close, so close his breath was another warmth against Sands' skin. Sands tipped his face up.

"Díos," El whispered. He cupped the back of Sands' skull.

Sands ran his free hand - his other was still clenched onto El's belt - up El's back under his jacket.

"This is a stupid place to be doing this," Sands said, but offered no other objection. El's presence was real and solid, big enough to block out the heat of the sun as he bent closer. Sands tasted salt on his lips as they kissed, then lost himself in the experience. He only remembered he couldn't see when El finally pulled away.

"Sí."

He pressed closer to El. El's hair brushed against his cheek. One hand rested on Sands' hip. The other one slipped down from his hair to the nape of his neck and stroked. Sands sighed.

"El," he murmured after a moment. He finally let go of the belt.

"I have something that's yours," El said. He stepped back from Sands.

"Yeah?"

He didn't even flinch when El carefully took away the sunglasses Blanca had bought for him. El took Sands' hand and guided it inside his jacket to a pocket over his heart. Sands frowned, feeling the familiar shape.

Sunglasses.

His sunglasses. Right over El's heart.

"Fideo found them."

Sands pulled the sunglasses out and put them on, immediately feeling better.

"And you kept them."

"Sí."

In the pocket where El kept the locket that had belonged to Carolina.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

***
The little house on the edge of a Tijuana slum had two bedrooms. Ramirez had taken one and Grace had taken the other. Pablito had gone with Grace. With the influx of two mariachis and a rogue CIA agent, the house was much too crowded now. Fideo had disappeared, though, after emptying a tequila bottle and declaring he needed to find another, and he would sleep in the car. El had just nodded. He'd parked Sands on a chair at the little kitchen's bare table and begun checking the man for wounds.

Ramirez had been shocked when Sands didn't protest, and further shocked when El peeled away Sands' jacket and shirt, revealing blood and bruises bad enough to bring up bile in his throat. Sands hadn't made a sound as El washed the ugly wounds, cleaning the lash marks and cigarette burns that criss-crossed his back. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, head hanging, shuddering once in a while. Ramirez could count every rib and every knob of Sands' spine down his back.

Ramirez went into the bathroom and came back with a first aid kit, laying it open next to the bowl of warm water the Mariachi had fetched. The man nodded to him silently. Once the wounds were clean, he stroked disinfectant into them, taping gauze over three of the deepest lash marks.

Sands let out a hissing breath only once, otherwise remaining silent, though after a while he began to tremble.

When El finished with Sands' back, he picked up the man's hands and rubbed antibiotic salve into the raw weals on his wrists. Then he carefully wrapped each wrist. Sands endured this too without words, only several flinches. Finally, the Mariachi helped Sands put on a clean shirt.

Ramirez stood in the corner and watched in disbelief as Sands' groped for and caught El's hand. "Gracias," he muttered.

El stroked Sands' hair and gave Ramirez a look that dared him to speak. "Fool," he murmured to Sands. Sands pushed into the petting like a greedy cat. "Did Heller do anything else?"

Sands tipped his head up. The black sunglasses still hid his eyes - or whatever was left. Ramirez had finally accepted that Sands truly was blind. He winced when he remembered leaving the man leaning against a wall in Culiacan on the Day of the Dead after the coup failed. He'd seen that Sands was wounded, seen the blood running down the man's face, but he couldn't imagine what had been done to him, because Sands gave nothing away, even then.

"No," Sands whispered to El. He leaned his head into El's touch.

"You should eat something," El said.

"Not hungry," Sands replied. Exhaustion slurred his words. "Later."

El drew Sands to his feet and guided him out of the kitchen. "Then you should sleep." He steered Sands to the couch and drew him down. Sands immediately slumped over, his head resting on El's lap.

"I could use a cigarette," Sands murmured.

El snorted. "You'd burn the house down over our heads."

"Fucker," Sands muttered. He wriggled and winced, before settling on his side.

"Sleep."

"I'll fucking dream."

El smoothed his scarred hand over Sands' shoulder. "Then I'll wake you." With an exasperated sigh, Sands settled into silence. El kept petting him even after Sands' breathing evened out and the last tension leached from the lean form. Then he carefully slid off the black sunglasses, folding and tucking them inside Sands' shirt pocket.

Ramirez studied Sands' unguarded face. Sands was drawn much thinner and paler than in Culiacan, though still handsome. Long, dark lashes brushed his cheekbones. Pale, jagged scars marred his eyelids. Ramirez frowned, then caught the Mariachi's pensive gaze.

"Barillo's daughter and the doctor took his eyes," El said. "He remembers Guevara using a drill." His hand brushed tenderly along Sands' temple and cheekbone. "They thought they would break him, but he would not lie down and die." Sands murmured restlessly, then quieted as El rubbed his shoulder gently and murmured to him soothingly.

"Guevara," Ramirez breathed, remembering the smiling sadist who had tortured and killed his own partner. He'd followed Barillo south because of Tom Archuleta. Sands had certainly been aware of how dangerous Guevara and Barillo were; Ramirez wondered how they had taken the canny CIA agent. Then he blinked, remembering the beautiful woman who had knocked him out in the hospital and strode out of the palace just before he followed Billy Chambers inside to try and take down Barillo. Ajedrez, Chambers had told him, was Barillo's daughter.

"Ajedrez?" he echoed.

"Ajedrez."

Sands flinched and shuddered even in his sleep and El ran a calming hand along his spine.

"She was his lover," the Mariachi explained very softly.

"How did you two - ?" Ramirez made a meaningless gesture, not sure if he meant how did the Mariachi and Sands meet or how did they end up together.

"He found me. Offered me the chance to kill Marquez," El replied. He added quietly. "Marquez killed my wife, Carolina, killed my daughter, left me for dead … and the Barillo cartel had been hunting me for years. Afterward, I found Sands. I thought I would kill him, too."

Ramirez frowned. The Mariachi pushed long hair away from his face. Moving slowly and carefully, he shrugged off his jacket and laid it over Sands' shoulders. The sleeping man huddled under the scorpion mark without waking. El looked up and met Ramirez' confused gaze.

He half-smiled. "You are wondering why I didn't?"

"Well, yes."

"He wanted to die, so I would not do it. I thought if I could keep him alive, it would be another way of wounding the cartels."

"Revenge," Ramirez murmured. He was still confused. That didn't match the Mariachi's attitude toward Sands now. It didn't fit with Sands' reactions to El, either.

"He is … ruined. Like me. But he is still … he will stay." El looked thoughtful. Ramirez guessed he was more comfortable expressing himself through his music or with his guns. He knew it was relief that had so many words spilling from El now. "He was like a feral cat, but too hurt to fight me at first. Sometimes he still scratches and bites, but he stays. - I do not think anyone ever gave him anything. He did not know how to - to accept, at first."

The hand with the leather gauntlet stroked dusty black hair away from Sands' face.

"He is not innocent," El said. "I know he is cruel, full of malice and tricks." Sands' breath was steady and slow. Ramirez watched as El listened to it for a long moment. Even asleep, Sands demanded attention and emotion. "He's too clever for his own good." Loyalty. Danger. Both lived within the fragile bundle of pale limbs lying trustingly next to the Mariachi. "But he belongs to Mexico; he is mine now."

Ramirez considered the halting explanation and almost understood. It wasn't his business anyway. He picked himself out of his chair, feeling tired and stiff. "You should take the other bedroom; there are two of you. I will sleep on the couch."

El studied him a moment and nodded. "Sands," he murmured into the sleeping man's ear. "Up."

Sands groggily pulled himself into a sitting position. "What is it?"

"We're going to the bedroom."

"Oh. Okay," he mumbled. He let El draw him up to his feet and stood, swaying. Then a hand rose toward his face in a panicked clutch, feeling for the missing sunglasses. "No. Where - ?" Sands kept his eyelids squeezed tight shut.

El caught Sands's hand and guided it to the glasses tucked into his shirt pocket.

"All is well," he crooned.

"Golly, El," Sands responded, "let's see you say that when you're the blind one."

"Come," El said, looping his arm around Sands' shoulder.

"Come. Sit. Stay. Roll over, shake hands, play dead," Sands grumbled. "When the hell do you think I went to obedience school?"

"Never," El laughed. "I think you are a cat, not a dog."

"Better," Sands said. He yawned unselfconsciously, displaying a curling pink tongue very much like a cat's.

Ramirez chuckled.

"To bed, to sleep, mi gato," El urged. He wrapped his arm around Sands' slight waist and walked him down the hall.

"On the right," Ramirez called quietly.

He waited until he heard the bedroom door close behind them, then moved to the couch and stretched his own weary body on its length. He thought of the two men and the contentment and relief in their silent touches. He thought he would have liked to lie down beside Grace Reyes and know that same comfort, but the boy had needed it so much more than him.

The boy. Pablo. He would never be safe until the Bautista cartel was completely destroyed. Chucho's death would only tell them that the child mattered to El Mariachi and Sands, making him an even more attractive target. The other CIA agent, Heller, was still out there, too, and he would tell them.

He thought of the marks burned and beaten into Sands' body. Heller had done that. Perhaps had done worse to others, who weren't ex-CIA officers with some claim to his mercy. Ramirez stirred restlessly on the couch. Heller was another Guevara.

Sands was going after him. The Mariachi would go with Sands. So perhaps would that young man, Fideo.

Ramirez stared at the ceiling.

Sands hadn't said anything.

It didn't matter. He was going with them, too.

Decided, Ramirez found it easy to fall asleep.

***
Sands let El undress him, doll-limp and drowsy. His head drooped, too-long dark hair veiling his face, baring the naked, vulnerable nape of his neck. El brushed his fingertips down, feeling the delicate bones too close under feverish skin. Sands shivered at the touch.

"El?"

He finished, drawing off Sands' pants.

He'd already seen the wounds on Sands' back, the bloody wrists and bruises. Now El catalogued washboard ribs, hollowed flanks, bone shining white through translucent skin at shoulder and hip, ankle, knee, elbow and shoulder blade. The gaunt look of a predator wounded and unable to hunt; that odd, touching fragility that still fascinated El in concert with the razor-wire spirit and baffling, quick wit. His fists wanted to clench in hot rage, looking at the marks of Sands' captivity. At the same time, he wanted to run his hands over Sands' body, reassure himself of its presence, relearn every inch of pale skin and lean muscle.

With a sigh, he swept back the bedding instead and urged Sands down into the bed. Sands sank down with a muffled hum, a sound of relief that speared through El. He doubted anyone, not lover or even mother, had ever glimpsed him so boneless and undone as he allowed himself to be with El.

He undressed swiftly himself and crawled in beside his lover. Sands relaxed against him with a sleepy mutter of irritation. "'Bout time. I'm cold."

El wrapped himself around the other man, noticing that Sands was actually hot, definitely running a fever.

"Sleep," he said.

"Bossy stringplucker," Sands slurred back, already half-asleep.

"Sleep."

"Mmn hmn."

***
Sands followed the murmur of voices to the small house's kitchen. He barely remembered the night before. By the time El had begun patching him up, he'd been running on the dregs of empty. Waking in the bed alone hadn't been much of a surprise, El generally woke before Sands. The sheets had still held something of El's scent, though. Sands had rolled onto his back, wincing at the sting in his wounds, and luxuriated in the quiet feeling of safety that came with knowing El was near. His stomach was burning a hole through him, though, protesting how long it had been since he'd eaten anything.

El had left his sunglasses on the small table beside the bed. His fingers brushed another familiar shape lying next to them: his telescoping cane. Another touch found his gunbelt and holsters, loaded guns within, lying on top of a neatly folded set of clothing.

Sands allowed himself a smile.

He dressed slowly, fumbling because he was stiff and still hurting. El had left his boots neatly set on the floor at the foot of the bed.

It felt odd, but he didn't pull on the gun harness. He shoved the small, flat-sided .22 in one boot top, and a Glock in the back of his jeans where his vest covered it, and padded out. He slipped the loop to the cane around his wrist, but guided himself by trailing his fingers along the wall.

He identified the voices as he approached the kitchen. El's voice and Ramirez' he knew, Fideo's slurred tones had become familiar, leaving only two that were unknown. One was the reporter, easily recognized simply because she was the only woman present, but the final one tickled at his memory. As he stepped into the room, the conversation died. He heard a chair scrape back and then light footsteps racing toward him.

"Señor Pistolero!" the high, childish voice cried out, a bare instant before Sands would have drawn his gun and taken a shot. His memory kicked into gear. It was the gum boy, Chiclet, from Culiacan. The kid barreled into him and latched on like a leech, rocking Sands back on his feet. He awkwardly half-hugged the kid back, patting his back lightly and wishing El or someone would get him the hell off.

"Hey, kid," he muttered. Thin arms were locked around his waist and he felt the wetness of tears through his shirt. "Hey, it's okay. Good to see you too, or, you know, not, because I can't …" He kept patting the kid's back helplessly.

"Señor, señor, they killed mamacita and papi and mi hermano," the kid wailed into his waist.

"What? My Christ," Sands muttered, automatically tightening his hold on the kid. He never let anyone this close voluntarily, except El, but the kid wasn't a threat. He made himself stay gentle. Fragile shoulder bones were sharp under his bare fingers and the hot child's skin under the thin layer of a sweaty cotton T-shirt felt disconcertingly the same as on that day. He'd bet the kid had had finger-shaped bruises after the Day of the Dead, he'd held on so tight then. Now the kid was clutching him with the same desperation. He couldn't push him away.

"Who was it, muchacho?" he asked.

"Cartel," the boy whispered. "Chucho."

Sands smiled. "Well, kid, you're in luck, because just by chance, yesterday I sent Chucho straight to Broadway. I blew him away. Dusted him. Put him down. Chucho is muerte. Dead as a doornail, kid."

The kid lifted his head and Sands guessed he was checking out his face. "Truth?"

Acting on impulse, Sands smoothed his hand over the kid's head and nodded. "You can ask Ramirez over there or your lady friend, they were there. I smoked Chucho. He won't ever hurt you again." Shit, that sounded like a damn promise. He knew better than anyone that promises weren't worth the air it took to make them. But, hell, Chucho was dead and Sands didn't think the crazy little bastard had enough imagination to come back from the grave.

The kid hugged him again, which didn't feel all that good against his bruised ribs, but Sands tolerated it. He took a shuffling step forward, moving the kid with him. His brain decided it was time to cough up that someone had called the kid Pablito the day before. "Come on, kid, you want to let me breathe, okay?"

"Pablo," the woman said quietly.

"Sí, señor," the kid said and let go, but stayed beside Sands, shoulder under his hand the way it had been before. Sands tightened his fingers faintly in acknowledgement and let the kid guide him to the table.

"Señor Ramirez is here," the kid told him, carefully walking forward, "and Señorita Reyes and Señor Fideo and - " Sands slapped the back of Fideo's head unerringly as the sot began snickering, " - El Mariachi."

El shoved a chair back with a loud scrape that let Sands locate it easily and sit down next to him.

He heard the kid perch himself in a chair next to him.

Sands cocked his head.

"Anyone going to catch me up on the gossip or should I just assume you all were chatting about me?" he asked.

"Sands," Ramirez muttered wearily. Sands imagined the eye-roll that went with the tone. It was easy to imagine with Ramirez because he had a memory of the man's face from before. He didn't know what the woman or even Fideo looked like. The mental gestalts he formed for people in his mind were very different now, based on voice and scent and a sixth sense for the way they moved: fast or slow, jerky or smooth, waving the air around with their hands or still like El and Fideo.

He heard El rise, chains sounding softly, and then the sound of something being poured into a cup. Sands sniffed and held up his hand to take the cup of coffee El handed him. He sipped it cautiously. El took his coffee at the boil. Ah, this must have been made by Ramirez or the woman; it wasn't too hot, either. Sands took another swallow appreciatively.

He carefully set the cup on the table top.

"Mr. Sands," the woman said. "I suppose you'll think it's stupid, but your friends," - Sands choked while El, Fideo, and Ramirez all laughed - "don't want to talk about the coup on El Día de los Muertos. Do you think you could tell me what happened?"

"Why? Why should I talk to you?" Sands was beginning to get himself wound up as he thought about it. "If you hadn't shown up, Chucho and the cartel wouldn't have come after the muchacho here, trying to hunt down El for the bounty. Ramirez wouldn't be on the run, Lorenzo and his girlfriend would still be alive, I wouldn't have had the everlovin' shit beat out of me by an ex-colleague, the kid wouldn't be an orphan, El wouldn't - "

El touched his shoulder lightly and Sands stopped, disgusted with himself. He grabbed up the coffee and drank some more.

When he set the cup down again, he said flatly, "El Día de los Muertos was one of the two worst days of my life. I do not want to talk about it. Ever." Not while he still dreamed of Ajedrez' smile and the drill.

"But - "

"Enough," El commanded.

"So what next?" Sands asked. He angled himself toward El. "What happened in Chiapas after Blanca dragged me out of there?"

"The Zapatistas attacked Bautista's estado," Fideo said. He sounded sober for once, which sent a chill down Sands' spine. "Lorenzo … " The sound of shifting fabric made Sands think Fideo had shrugged. "Bautista's wife shot him. The cartel's hold in Chiapas is broken, but the CIA man and Bautista got out. Chucho wasn't even there. The gringa disappeared. And you."

Sands frowned. Hadn't the ELZN group been in bed with Bautista? He'd heard someone talking with Heller, hadn't he? He'd only been half-conscious, but … there had been something about an arms deal. Maybe it fell through or Heller double-crossed the Zapatistas, too. But then Blanca had said the Zapatista's were attacking when she pulled him out of there ....

"We followed," El said simply.

"Why were you with the gringa?" Fideo asked. He sounded a lot sharper when he wasn't drowning in tequila, Sands thought. He also sounded faintly accusing.

"Well, not because I was taken with her charms," Sands replied. He still hurt. Blanca hadn't been interested in torturing him, but she hadn't wanted to play Nurse Nell, either. Everything Heller had done had been left untreated until El took over the night before. "She figured I could take her to Heller. Didn't offer me much choice: go with her or die."

"This Heller seems even less likable than you, Sands," Ramirez commented.

"Hah hah, very funny, Jorge," Sands said. "That - I'm not - " He shuddered. What Heller had done while they held him at Bautista's estate had been bad enough, but what he'd threatened they would do had nearly broken him. He'd thought nothing would ever compare to his blinding, but he'd been wrong. Heller had laughed and promised Sands he wouldn't die. Bautista's doctors would make sure of that, even after Heller smashed his hands and feet and sliced his tendons, even when he was deafened, even when his tongue had been cut out … Heller promised to leave him so that he couldn't even kill himself. Sands had been screaming inside at the thought.

A small, hot hand wrapped around his fingers where they were clutching the edge of the table. Everyone was silent and Sands wondered how long he'd been out of it, replaying his stay in Bautista's cellars. Did they see how shaky he was inside, just from remembering Heller's threats? The kid was saying something. Sands tried to listen.

"Señor, señor, are you all right?"

"Sí," he heard himself say distantly. Part of him was still in the cellar, though, in the darkness; the darkness that was the same everywhere. Heller was out there somewhere. Maybe, Sands thought wildly, feeling his heart begin to race, Heller had already done it and he was only dreaming Blanca had taken him out of there.

He drew a panicked breath, suddenly convinced it was true; escape was the dream and he was still in the nightmare. Everything was gone and he was sinking into a never-ending hell. He felt himself sway in his chair. Another hand was on him, steadying him, though, and the kid - Pablito - was clutching his hand. The scent of coffee and burnt toast, of morning damp, of bubble gum and childish sweat, of Fideo's cigarettes, and next to him, like a hot desert wind, El, blood, cordite, dust and death, filled his lungs. It slammed Sands back into reality and he gasped. He turned his hand in Pablito's and squeezed it gently.

"Sí," he said again. He groped for the coffee cup, found it shoved into his hand and swallowed the cooling brew gratefully, grounded once more. El's hand stayed on his back, steady and warm.

"What did Heller do?" Ramirez asked quietly. The question wasn't really aimed at Sands.

Sands shook his head, though. He didn't think he could speak of the terror those threats had seeded in him.

He made himself say something. "The Agency knew who Ajedrez was. Heller's the one who pulled the information from the background report on her."

Ramirez hissed out a harsh breath.

"Why?"

Sands shrugged. "To get me out of the way, probably. I wouldn't crawl in bed with the cartels and I would have heard if anyone else on the Agency's payroll did."

"You were set up."

Sands leaned back into El's hand. Despite his bravado the day before, he hadn't really believed El would find him. The best he'd hoped for was to find his own way back to Villa Perdidos. Show up like the proverbial bad penny.

El was stroking his back.

Sands tried out a smile. He had a feeling it didn't quite succeed. He didn't care, as long as El was there. "They set me up, they watched me fall. I'd guess I wasn't the only agent they burned, either. Not the first and not the last." Like that rat Nicolas' princes, he thought; when he'd thought he was The Prince.

"Like Archuleta," Ramirez said.

"Except I survived," Sands added.

"That must have pissed them off."

Sands laughed at that. "Gosh, Jorge, haven't you figured out that I'm good at that?"

Ramirez chuckled reluctantly. "Oh, I'd guessed."