Joshua Graham - Terminus

Not one of them smiled back

“I got an in with Lito’s sister,” Joey said. “She’s mad enough with him to want what you want.”

“Good,” Lena said. “Do this to my satisfaction, and you’ll be given authority over all of southern California, reporting directly to me.” She trained her eyes on Miguel: “Do you have anyone with sniper skills?”

“I’ll get him there tonight. But there’s a problem,” he said. “We don’t have tickets and I’m pretty sure they won’t let us bring guns into the stadium.”

Lena opened the palm of her hand. Miguel handed out the tickets that appeared. By now they barely looked surprised.

“Just show up.”

LENA TELEPORTED TO NEW YORK HARBOR to clear her mind after her frustrating meeting with the cartel leaders.

Everything was going as planned. Serena—Raven—had reported that after the little hiccup with the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps, the package was en route to the installation site. Nevertheless, a last-minute check was in order. Lena dialed the number but it rolled over to voice mail.

She tried again. And again.

Finally, Yuri Kosolupov answered his cell phone.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“Stop calling!” His voice was barely audible. “We’re in the middle of configuring the packages—there are security guards in the corridors. I’m shutting my phone off. Call you later.”

“Yuri, wait!”

Click.

Lena slammed her fist down so hard it made a long crack in one of the spears in Lady Liberty’s crown. He cut her off ? After she sent one of her Nephilim to bail his sorry butt out of military detention?

Simmering in that old rage she had embraced years ago, Lena tried calming herself with the knowledge that in just a little while, the debts would come due.

There was hell to pay.

“GO AHEAD AND OPEN IT.” The old man sat across the table from Maria in a corner of the Chula Vista public library, his hands on a walking stick, his deep brown eyes gazing at her from beneath sagacious white eyebrows.

Maria looked at the manila folder. What would Lito think if he knew she was with a representative of their sworn enemies, however ancient? But it was Juan Suarez who had contacted her, claiming he had information connected to her late fiancé.

“I have wanted to speak to you for so long, mi cariño. ” He heaved a weary sigh. “But not until I had proof. Alfonso knew something Carlito has kept from you your whole life.”

She thumbed through the pages, newspaper clippings, glossy photographs faded over time, then stopped at a middle-aged woman and a man posed on the porch of a house with a white balustrade and a red tiled roof. Sitting on the woman’s lap was a little girl who could not have been more than two or three years old. The three of them seemed vaguely familiar.

“Who are these people?”

“Don’t you know?”

She shook her head and stopped at a newspaper clipping. The headline read:

PABLO AND ANTONIA SUAREZ GUNNED DOWN AT HOME

“Pablo was my only son,” Juan Suarez said.

The profound sadness in his eyes softened Maria’s angry thought about how many Guzmans the Suarezes had killed. She looked again at the family photo. The mother’s eyes were sad. The father looked like a man used to throwing his weight around, just what she’d expect from the Suarez syndicate leader. The little girl—

Maria saw it.

Something she hadn’t noticed before. And the sight filled her with joy. At the left side of the patio chair a large black Labrador looked up at the little girl.

“Rosie!”

“Of everyone in the picture, you remember Rosinante?” Suarez said

“Rosi…nante?” It didn’t take long for Maria’s smile to fade. A sickening dread hollowed her stomach and crept up her throat.

“So you do remember.”

She gripped the edge of the table, unable to speak the word that kept repeating in her mind: NO! no, no, no… She was plummeting, spinning into a vortex of emotions, memories, impossibilities as she pieced it all together.

“Soy tu abuelo, mi querida,” Suarez’s eyes were bright with intensity, his hand quivering so violently the cane tapped the floor in an eerie ostinato.

“My…my grandfather?”

“Your true name is Maria de Los Angeles Hernandez Perez de Suarez.”

“De Suarez?” The name caught like grains of sand in her throat. “It can’t be. I am Maria Guzman ! I know who my father was, my mother, even my brother Carlito!”

The old man sighed. “And yet, you remember the house in the picture and the dog I gave your father when he was a young man, do you not?”

She nodded. That was the only thing keeping her from storming out of the library, cursing this old man.

“I am sure you’ll remember your Papi putting you on Rosie’s back and riding her like Don Quixote’s faithful steed.”

It was true. She remembered it all—the house, Mama’s sweet-smelling hair, Papi’s strong hands that threw her into the air and never failed to catch her.

“It’s so hard to believe. How ?”

“Your mother and father…” Her grandfather’s voice faltered. “They were killed in cold blood, a hit by the Guzman family. But the killers didn’t know there was a two-year-old child in the house. They took you back to the Guzman’s and raised you as their own.”

“No…”

“They are not your true family, Maria. They executed your parents and burned down the house. Pablo and Antonia were illegal immigrants—they had no birth certificate for you, and no one outside of the Suarez family knew of you. And what with the nature of our business, no one ever told the authorities anything about the missing baby.”

“Stop it! I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Don’t you see? Alfonso told Carlito he knew the secret and threatened to tell you. For that, Carlito had him killed. The Guzmans are evil, Maria. Lito is evil.”

At last Maria understood why Lito had always been so controlling. To him she was a child of the enemy, unworthy of the Guzmans’ love and respect. Everything kind he’d done for her—every expression of love from him and the pretenders that styled themselves her parents—had been a lie.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice dropping to a dreadful whisper. The warmth of the old man’s leathery hand comforted her as it wrapped around hers.

“The time has come for you to return to your true family.”

“But…they all know me as Maria Guzman.”

“Don’t worry about that. Only one thing matters right now.”

With the back of her hand Maria wiped furious tears from her eyes.

“After more than twenty years, your time is finally at hand.”

“My time?” Maria hugged her arms as a chill from the air conditioning blew over her.

“To avenge your parents’ death.”

Ten minutes later, Maria was on her way to meet with her cousin Joey Hernandez. Lito was not her brother, after all, never had been.

He would pay for his sins and those of his father. And if heaven denied entry to those who honored their parents by avenging them, so be it. Her eyes were open now. After the initial shock, she could see more clearly than ever before in her life.

What she did not see was the old man walking briskly back to the silver Lexus parked in a secluded alley, reaching through the glass window to touch the head of a dead man whose likeness he had stolen, and transforming into the white mist of a demon named Morloch just before he vanished.

NICK STOOD AT THE HOTEL ROOM BALCONY, feeling wonderfully refreshed. For the first time in more than a century, he’d enjoyed a solid stint of slumber. After a satisfying stretch, he watched the gray marine layer slowly burn off, yielding a blue sky. Pelicans flying in a perfectly formed squadron swooped down to hover over the water.