S Stirling - The Council of Shadows

"So, they are chupacabra and we their goats! Nyyahahaha…"

"Yeah, pretty much. We are their barbacoa."

"It's worse than flames what she makes me do!"

Jose looked surprised. "You were a virgin? I'm sorry. It must have been very hard to learn the perversions she likes, not knowing the loving pleasure most of us can share."

Cheba snapped angrily, "No, I wasn't a virgin! Paco took care of that, he and five other men!" She turned away from his shocked eyes, picking up and draining the soda pop. She hesitated and waggled the bottle at him.

"How do they get the drugs into it? And what is it called?" she asked.

"Drugs?" he asked.

"If she doesn't like what I do she takes away the drugs. I never smoked, drank, did drogas! And now I am shaky, angry, confused, and she will only give me the drugs if I do what she says. But I don't know which drug or how it gets into me. If I knew, maybe I could run away. I thought it was in the Jarritos and that she took away the ones with drugs if she was angry at me. But now I don't think that's it."

"Ooohh, nina," exclaimed Jose. "It's the bite itself. La Dona is the drug. It's in the spit."

"?Ai!"

"See, I told you, they're made to prey on us, like jaguars on deer. You remember the night you came here, what happened-"

He pointed eastward. She remembered it, the killing hall, and La Donas guests…feasting.

"Well, you're lucky the Brezes don't always kill. I'm going to live a long time."

"What do you mean?"

" La Dona hasn't bitten me for five days, now. It hurts and I'm restless, and angry…and trying hard not to yell at you, you stubborn goat!"

"Oh," she said. "Then…why?"

"Because she says my time as a lucy is over. Now I go back to my life, get married, settle down. Protected, you understand? All the people born here are, the renfield families who serve the Brezes. And you could be. Or you could end up dead, or worse than dead-like George."

"You look sick," she said suddenly.

"I'm going to get a lot worse before I get better, and it takes a lot of work and other drugs to stop the addiction."

He shrugged. "Pain I can stand. There's pain in life, you know that. You let it be your master or you make yourself its master; there is no other way."

Cheba frowned. The blanched quality she'd noticed earlier was getting worse, and she could see pain lines etching themselves on his face.

"?Eso te pasa?" she asked sharply, feeling sick to her stomach as she understood.

He took the bottle to the sink and turned. "Yes. I was born here. I get to live when she is done with me, just like my uncle. You don't. If she had died, you, Monica and Peter would have been killed by her parents."

"Will…will it be very bad? I feel…itchy now. And I saw people at home who had no money for their drugs."

"Yes, it is very bad. Some kill themselves because of the pain; I won't, and I have the doctor to help me as well. Give me your cell phone."

Jose snatched it out of the air when she tossed it over to him.

"When I call you it will play 'Tilingo Lingo.' That's loud enough to wake you no matter what."

He tossed it back to her. "So, I am going through withdrawal. It's getting really bad, I've got a few more days before I begin screaming. Do you take this chance? Or die?"

Cheba looked at the gray and sweating man standing by her-her!kitchen sink. He, and Monica and even Peter had all tried to be nice to her.

No, she thought, were nice to me, helped me, tried to support me, teach me…and I was mean and nasty and sullen back to them. They are not her. I don't dare be that way to her.

"I don't know what to do," she said.

"If that means, yes, then go see Dr. Duggan tomorrow at eight a.m. Say it with words."

"Yes, yes, I will take care of you. And not because La Dona says so; but because you took care of me and I wasn't good back."

Jose's eyes were dark brown pools of pleading fear, and Cheba put out her hand. Hand in hand they walked through the house. She opened the door and they walked out into the late-summer day.

She looked over at Jose's house and the one beyond it. "Monica is still asleep. Her mother was pretty mad, last night," she observed in Spanish to Jose.

"It's hard; most lucies don't have kids. Monica tries to make sure they are always taken care of. I don't know what will happen next. La Dona will be traveling and she always takes Monica with her."

He shrugged. "She's sent Peter away somewhere, to do something for her. Poor guy; withdrawal will be hell for him, all alone. You might go with her and Monica-if you can get along with Monica. Try! Monica is a very nice person, and if you can't make her want you there, you might die, after all."

Jose walked to his house and gave her a small wave as he walked in.

She stood, troubled, on the doorstep, turning the cell phone over and over in her hands…hands that wanted work; a crochet hook, some thread, a pretty collar and some cuffs, a doily growing steadily, extra money as the tourists admired her mother's embroidered napkins and her lacy trims on them. ?Chupacabra! she thought.?Y yo, chiva! Cheba, la chiva, cabrita chula!

Calling herself a nanny goat, a cute little kid, didn't really make her feel any better. She went back to the kitchen, rinsed the bottles out and took them to the recycling bin on her back porch. The little orange cat that had belonged to the brujos wife, Elena, peered out at her from under the bush. She called it imizton, that woman's cat in Nahuatl, and fed it out of pity. She wondered what Elena had called it; Monica hadn't known.

She returned to the house and closed the door, frowning. The house was clean. The annoying rugs that couldn't be swept were vacuumed with the loud machine several times a week, her kitchen spotless…She grimaced, wishing for her grandmother's open-air kitchen, four poles, a thatched roof, a table and a little charcoal stove. Then she looked around the bright little room and scolded herself. It wasn't what she had wanted, or expected, and it was full of the…of Elena's things. But Elena had good taste and they were pretty and comfortable things. She should stop being angry, all it did was give her bilis.

One day, she thought, one day I will find a way to kill La Dona, and free myself. Elena nearly killed her, and what she could do, I can do! Until then I will take what I can and use everything I can find. I will be clever before I can be brave; then I will be brave and clever .

She nodded sharply and looked down at her clean brown foot, neatly shod in a pretty gold leather sandal, a light anklet around her right ankle with a little charm made out of amethysts. Her lilac pants, ordered with Monicas help off the Internet, were something Monica had called "pedal pushers," and fit perfectly. She had on a nice shirt in a soft gold color. Her feet were clean, her toenails and fingernails manicured, her hair soft and wavy, pulled up into a long ponytail; she had many luxuries she had never had in her life.

She shook her head thoughtfully, remembering the little stream where she and her mother had bathed every night in the warm, smelly waters that ran into the Gulf of Mexico, carefully using harsh yellow soap under their clothes; never undressing all the way. It had been hard to keep themselves clean, but they had managed that much.

Now, she thought. Now, I must make friends with Monica. How can I do that?

She stood by the living room window and craned a bit, looking towards Monica's quiet house. Generally Monica had the house open to the air and sun, nice smells coming out as she cooked a little snack for her children.

Oh! Cheba remembered. La Dona called Monica to come to her last night and she called her mother and her mother came but yelled and yelled at her. I hope they didn't wake the children. So Monica must be really feeling bad…A session with La Dona right on top of the fight with her mother. I guess her mama doesn't really know what La Dona is. Will the children travel with them or stay with their grandmother? What about La Dona 's children?