Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss
Read Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss Online
Authors: Christa Faust
A
LSO
A
VAILABLE FROM
T
ITAN
B
OOKS:
Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon
by Keith R.A. DeCandido
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by Joe Schreiber
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by Rebecca Dessertine & David Reed
Supernatural: One Year Gone
by Rebecca Dessertine
C
OMING
S
OON
:
Supernatural: Night Terror
by John Passarella
COYOTE’S KISS
CHRISTA FAUST
SUPERNATURAL created by Eric Kripke
TITAN BOOKS
Supernatural: Coyote’s Kiss
ISBN: 9780857685438
Published by
Titan Books
A division of
Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St
London
SE1 0UP
First edition July 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
SUPERNATURAL™ & © 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Cover imagery: Front cover image courtesy of Warner Bros.; Sun’s Stone © Romantsova Olga.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in the United States.
ISTORIAN’S
N
OTE
This novel takes place during season six, between “Caged Heat” and “Appointment in Samara.”
ONE
Letty was almost positive that the beautiful woman hadn’t been part of their group when they left the Sonoran town of Altar, heading for the U.S. border. But as exhausted, dehydrated, and sleep deprived as she was, it was difficult to be sure.
Crammed into the first of several filthy, claustrophobic vans, nineteen-year-old Letty had felt self-conscious and anxious. She was one of only three females in a group composed primarily of rough, posturing men. A skinny, awkward girl that boys barely noticed back home in Tláhuac. But they noticed her now, and some of the men made crude comments about her, encouraging each other to pinch her meager breasts.
It had got worse after Marta, the only person who had been nice to her, had been bitten by a snake and had to be left behind. Marta tried to make Letty take her water, since she knew she was dying and didn’t want it to be wasted, but Letty couldn’t bring herself to leave the older woman with nothing. Now, in the unrelenting heat with the heartless sun burning her scalp and blurring her vision, Letty wished she’d taken the water after all. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be imagining things. Like the beautiful woman.
They’d made it over the border just before dawn and were hunkered down, waiting for nightfall. At which time another vehicle was supposed to pick them up and take them the rest of the way to the safe house in Phoenix. Their Coyote, a nickname given to border-crossing guides by the migrants they smuggled into the States, had left them. The spot where he told them to wait was nothing but a cluster of thorny brush and jagged rock. Barely enough shade to shelter a single person, let alone a large group. The Coyote himself had been picked up by another smuggler on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), leaving behind a single two-liter bottle of warm, gritty water and dire warnings to stay hidden and listen for helicopters.
As morning became midday, the killing heat started picking them off one by one, like a lazy sniper. One of the young men who’d grabbed Letty’s breasts was now unconscious, slumped like a drunkard and barely breathing. He’d stopped sweating. A young woman whose name Letty had never learned was already dead. The flies had found her. The water was long gone.
But the beautiful woman didn’t seem phased by the heat at all. She sat in the sand with her legs crossed and the hood of her black sweatshirt up, shading her eyes. Her supple lips were not cracked and parched. Her smooth, pale skin was clean and untouched by sunburn. She didn’t have a backpack. She didn’t speak. She just watched the sun travel across the sky. No one seemed to notice her but Letty.
The unconscious man was dead by the time the promised vehicle arrived, a weary old cube truck with bald tires that did not look up to the task of navigating the rough, unpaved road. Two other men were barely alive and had to be dragged into the truck by their friends. Letty was so thirsty and so exhausted that she could barely stand, but she managed. She wasn’t about to give up now. The beautiful woman was close behind her as she staggered to the rear bumper of the truck and climbed inside. It smelled like urine and human misery. The Coyote pulled down the roll door and padlocked it with a heavy chain. The engine rumbled and coughed, filling the airless space with the stench of exhaust.
Letty sat on her backpack and concentrated on not throwing up. She couldn’t spare the water. That’s when she realized the beautiful woman was now sitting right beside her. The woman had pushed back her hood and her wild curly hair brushed Letty’s cheek, smelling like woodsmoke and copal.
“
My name is Letty
,” she whispered in Spanish to the beautiful woman, just to distract herself from the churning nausea.