The Day of the Dead by Karen Chance

The Day of the
Dead

    Karen Chance

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright 2010 Karen
Chance

    Smashwords Edition License
Notes
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the Cassandra Palmer universe.

    ‘ I’m looking for my
brother,’ the girl repeated, for the third time. Her accent was
terrible, New Jersey meets Mexico City, making her difficult to
understand, but Tomas doubted that that was the problem. The
largely male crowd in the small cantina weren’t interested in
a gaba with a sob
story, even one who was tall and slim, with slanting hazel eyes and
long black hair.
    Japanese ancestry, Tomas decided, or
maybe Korean. There might be some Italian, too, based on the slight
wave in her hair and the Roman nose, which was a little too
prominent for her slender face. She was arresting, rather than
pretty, the kind of woman you’d remember, although her outfit would
probably have insured that anyway. He approved of the tight cargo
pants and the short leather jacket. But the shotgun she wore on a
strap slung over her shoulder and the handgun at her waist took
away from the effect.
    ‘ He’s nineteen,’ she
continued stubbornly. ‘Black hair, brown eyes, 6 foot 2 –
’
    The bartender suddenly snapped to
attention, but he wasn’t looking at her. His hand slid under the
counter to rest on the shotgun he kept there. Tomas hadn’t seen it,
but he’d smelled the old gun oil and faint powder traces as soon as
he walked in. But the man who slammed in through the door was
merely human.
    ‘ Hijole , Alcazar!’ the bartender shouted, as the room exploded in
yells of abuse. ‘What do you mean, bursting in here like that? Do
you want to get shot?’
    The man shook his head, looking
vaguely green under the cantina’s bare bulbs. ‘I thought I heard
something behind me,’ he said shakily, joining a few friends at an
already overcrowded table. ‘On the way back from the
cemetery.’
    ‘ You shouldn’t have been
there so late,’ one of his friends reproached, sliding him a drink.
‘Not tonight.’
    ‘ I lost track of time. I
was visiting Elia’s grave and – ’
    ‘ ¡Aguas! You will do your daughter no good by joining
her!’
    There was frightened muttering for a
moment, and several patrons stopped fingering their weapons to
actually draw them. Tomas had the distinct impression that the next
time the door opened, whoever stood there was likely to get shot.
Tension was running far too high for good sense.
    Then the bartender suddenly let out a
laugh, and slid another round onto the men’s table. ‘I wouldn’t
worry,’ he said heartily. ‘From what I hear, even your Consuela
doesn’t want you. Why would the monsters?’
    The room erupted into relieved
laughter as the man, his fright forgotten, stood up to angrily
defend his manhood. ‘She ran off with some wealthy bastard,’ he
said, shooting Tomas an evil look.
    Tomas calmly sipped mescal and didn’t
respond. But he wished for about the hundredth time that he’d given
a little more thought to blending in. His reflection in the chipped
mirror behind the bar, while not Anglo, stood out as much as the
girl’s.
    The high cheekbones and straight black
hair of his Incan mother had mixed with the golden skin and
European features of his Spanish father, resulting in a combination
that many people seemed to find attractive. He’d always found it an
inconvenient reminder of the domination of one half of his ancestry
by the other.  The conquest of a continent written on his
face.
    He couldn’t honestly blame the locals
for mistaking him for a wealthy city dweller, despite the fact that
he’d been born into a village even poorer than this one and was
currently completely broke. He’d picked up his outfit, a dark