Heart of a Dragon (26 page)

"We will stop her," Martinez said softly.
 
"You have to trust me.
 
I am doing what I can – and there are others."

"The two who helped us?" Jake asked.

Martinez nodded.

"They are powerful, and it is good that they fight at our side.
 
What we are up against is more than any one of us could withstand.
 
They will fight, and we have to help in any way we can.
 
We have to take the war to Anya Cabrera and her demons, or we will be lost before we even know that the battle has begun."

Before Snake could reply, Manuel burst back into the room.
 
He went straight to his brother's side, and he knelt again.
 
He kissed Enrique lightly on the brow; his hands clenched so tightly the nails bit into the palms of his hands.
 
Then, working slowly and very, very gently, he began to work the leather jacket off of his brother's arm.
 
He pulled it free of one arm, and turned to Jake.

"Help me," he said.
 
His voice cracked.

Jake hurried to do as Manuel asked.
 
They gently rolled Enrique to the side, slid the blood-soaked jacket out from under him, and pulled it free.
 
Manuel dropped it on the floor at his feet, then turned back to his brother.
 
He carefully arranged Enrique's arms, crossed on his chest.
 
He leaned closer and closed his brother's eyelids.
 
Then, crossing himself, he leaned down and picked the jacket up, holding it in his hands and staring at the dragon painted on the back.

It was still beautifully worked, but something had changed.
 
It didn't have the luster it had possessed when Salvatore first painted it.
 
The ice-blue seemed more like a dull gray.
 
It might have been the light, but the jacket mirrored the death pallor of its owner.

Without a word, Manuel turned and headed for the door.

"Where you going, bro?" Jake called out.

"Don't follow me," Manuel said.
 
"Don't. Fucking. Follow.
 
I'm going for a ride."

"You should leave the jacket," Martinez said.

Manuel spun and locked his gaze on the old man.
 
He held the jacket very tightly in his hands, and his arms shook from the tension of that grip.

"He was my brother, old man.
 
This was his, and now it's mine.
 
I will wear it in his honor, and when the time comes to take revenge – I will wrap it around the throat of the Escorpione bastard who killed him."

Before anyone could say another word, Manuel swung the jacket over his shoulders and slipped it on.
 
He ignored the blood.
 
Without a word he spun and left the room.
 
Jake went to the door after him, but before he could even get onto the sidewalk the powerful growl of Manuel's bike ripped through the night.

With a squeal of rubber on pavement and a spray of gravel, the big chopper shot off down the street.

"Let him go," Snake said, stepping out beside Jake.
 
"His brother is dead.
 
Our
brother is dead.
 
Let him mourn.
 
He'll be back.
 
Let's do the right thing and take care of Enrique."

Jake nodded, and the two stepped back inside together.
 
Martinez slipped past them to stand in the cool evening air.
 
He stared off down the street after Manuel.
 
His expression was troubled.

"Be safe," he said.

Then he turned and followed the others inside, closing the door on the night.

~ * ~

Manuel gunned the old Harley and skidded around the corner of Forty-Second Street, barely catching traction before he slammed into the curb on the far side of the street.
 
There was no traffic, and he shot off toward the entrance to the freeway.
 
He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he had to get out of town, get to somewhere he could cut loose without fear of being pulled over.
 
The wind whipped through his hair, and he wanted it harder and faster.
 
He wanted it to blow the world away behind him and erase the events of the night.

He turned onto the ramp without running into a cop and shot up the coast highway.
 
He took the exit that led to the two-lane toward Lavender, and the mountains beyond.
 
There were roads up there where he could be alone, where he and the bike and the road could mourn with one voice.
 
He thought, maybe, if he reached the topmost peak of the mountain, up near the border of the sky, that he might catch a glimpse of his brother – of his spirit – his dragon.

The jacket felt heavy and wrong.
 
It fit poorly, and he frowned.
 
He and Enrique had always worn one another's clothing.
 
They were nearly the same size, built the same, hard to tell apart after Manuel had shaved his beard.
 
They had been inseparable, but now that word made no sense.
 
It had no truth behind it.
 
They were separated, and despite the fact that he somehow felt the outline of the dragon through the leather on his back – a dragon he could have sworn shared his brother's soul, he had never felt so alone.
 
There was an ache in his chest – not where his heart was broken, but where the blade had sliced the jacket.
 
He gritted his teeth and ignored it.

He flew down the highway and turned off on the mountain road, sliding up through shadows a little more slowly and then gunning the engine again.
 
He raced upward, taking turns at crazy speeds and skidding into embankments.

At some point, a shadow rose to cover the moon.
 
He could still see the pavement – the headlight of his bike sliced easily through the darkness.
 
He glanced up, and nearly slid off the side of the road.
 
Something soared overhead, something long and sleek, serpentine and powerful.
 
He saw a
 
flicker of blue light along its length, and heard the rustle of huge, leathery wings.

He roared around another corner.
 
The road was narrow.
 
The side of the mountain was steep, almost a cliff.
 
He could not take his eyes off of the dragon.
 
It was a dragon – it had to be a dragon.
 
He drove straight at it, lifted his hand and reached out to it.
 
He heard the impossibly loud scream as it called to him, and without hesitation, he launched the bike off into empty, open space.

"Enrique!" he screamed.
 
"Brother!"

And then it was gone.
 
Silvery clouds swam across the face of the moon, and he was falling, screaming, into tall trees and rocks.
 
The bike struck first, bounced once, and flipped.
 
Manuel's head slammed into the trunk of a tree.
 
Branches broke and cut at his flesh, but he was already gone.
  
He hit, finally, and slid for a very long time.
 
The bike lay on its side, engine still idling.
 
The headlight was smashed, but the taillight blinked through the shadows.

The jacket slid up and over the back of his head where he lay, covering him like a shroud.

The call came early the next morning.
 
It did not come to the clubhouse, or to Snake, but to Manuel's mother.
 
The dragon had never married, and though he didn't live at home, that was the address he listed when anything official had to be signed.
 
Elena Delgado answered on the fourth ring.
 
She'd been expecting a call like this one most of her adult life – since her husband Paco had died, and the boys had both taken up with Snake and The Dragons.
  
They were good boys, for the most part, but it was a dangerous life they led.
 
The Barrio was a dangerous place.

What Elena had not anticipated was getting two such calls in a single night.
 
Snake had called, and then visited in person to tell her of Enrique's death. When she'd asked why Manuel had not come – where he had gone – Snake had shook his head.
 
He didn't know.
 
Men grieve in their own fashion, he said.
 
Now Elena cradled the phone in her hand and brought it to her ear.

When the message had been delivered, she didn't hang up the phone.
 
She let it drop from her hand, and she turned away. Tears unfocused the world, and she stumbled back, not really going anywhere, just unwilling to stand still and let reality grip her heart.
 
She had to go somewhere, to do something.

Elena grabbed her jacket, and her purse.
 
It was still dark out, and she knew that she couldn't' drive in her current state.
 
She closed and locked her door, leaving the phone beeping it's off-the-hook busy signal to an empty home, and turned away.
 
It was about a mile to The Dragons clubhouse.
 
She pulled her jacket about her more tightly, bowed her head, and began walking.

~ * ~

It was not easy getting the police to release Enrique's jacket.
 
Manuel had worn it when he died, and it was now stained with the blood of two men – two brothers – both dead.
 
The death's had to be explained.
 
In the end, Elena's grief, and the tragic loss of two brothers in the prime of their lives softened even official hearts.
 
Snake was allowed to carry off the jacket and a few other personal effects in an old cardboard box.
 
Elena walked at his side, her back bent.
  
She was silent, for the most part, and he left her to her grief.

At the clubhouse he found the others milling about on the street, awaiting his return.
 
When they saw him walk into site, Elena at his side, they stood in ranks, three deep, on either side of the walk leading up to the door.
 
Snake paid no attention to them at all.

He carried the box past them, looking neither right nor left, and entered the clubhouse.
 
Once inside, he placed the box on a chair and pulled out the jacket.
 
It was tattered now, torn where the blade has sliced through, scraped from crazed fall down the mountain.
 
Snake turned it, held it up, and stared at the ice blue dragon.

There was no expression on his face.
 
He studied the image carefully, as if imprinting it in his memory.
 
The rest of the Dragons slowly trickled in behind him.
 
None of them spoke.
 
There was nothing that they could have said.
 
Three of their number had now died in a very short span of time – more than they'd lost at one time since their formation.

Snake turned back to the box of Manuel's belongings.
 
He reached in, and this time he pulled out a long, thin knife. With this in one hand, and the jacket in the other, he crossed the room toward an empty wall beside the fireplace.
 
As he moved, he picked up speed, until at the last moment, he brought the jacket up, slammed the knife forward, and buried it through the leather into the plaster and wood beyond.

The impact was loud and it echoed through the room.
 
Some of the Dragons took a step back.
 
Others only flinched.
 
Snake stood and stared at the dragon on the leather, now glaring back at him from the wall – trapped there.
 
He turned, and he scanned the others.
 
His eyes blazed with anger and pain.

"No one will touch that," he said.
 
"Not now, not ever.
 
I will personally kill the first who does.
 
I have not liked these fancy painted dragons from the beginning.
 
We have colors – they have always been enough.
 
Martinez warned Manuel not to wear the dragon, and he took it anyway.
 
He took it, and it took him in return.
 
We have lost two brothers.
 
It is time for this to be finished.
 
Do you understand?
 
Am I clear on this?
 
That jacket will hang there until eternity comes for us all, and if it does not – it will not be the dragon on the jacket that you should fear.
 
It will be me."

He stood in silence for what seemed a long time.
 
When no one responded, he spoke again.

"Get the word out," he said.
 
"Send notice to every chapter, every brother and sister you can reach.
 
We will meet tonight, and we will decide what is to be done.
 
Los Escorpiones
have started this, and we need to find a way to end it.
 
If that old witch Anya Cabrera is behind this – she will pay as well.
 
We must stand, and we must fight.
 
We cannot go on having our numbers whittled down a few at a time, cowering in the shadows."