An engine screamed from the treeline. A second one chased it.
A motorcycle broke through the trees, covered in mud, barely staying upright. The rider was losing that fight. A black SUV with no plates closed the distance behind him and showed no sign of stopping.
The bike hit the gravel at the base of the porch and went sideways. The rider went with it, one leg pinned under the frame, the other dragging through the dirt. He didn't try to get up.
The SUV slid to a stop, and the passenger door opened. A guy with a rifle stepped out, ready to finish the job.
I came around the corner at a dead sprint. He caught me in his peripheral vision and tried to swing the rifle around, but rifles need distance and I was already inside his reach. The katana took both his hands off at the wrists. The rifle dropped. He opened his mouth to scream, and I opened his throat on the backswing, shutting him up before he got a sound out.
The driver panicked and threw the SUV into reverse. I covered the ground before he found the gear, drove the blade through the open door into his ribs, and pulled it out clean. The SUV rolled backward into the ditch with the engine still running. The driver was still squirming, despite his mortal wound.
The shotgun boomed from the porch, and the windshield exploded, turning the man’s head into a fine red mist. Diego racked the next shell, already moving toward the downed rider.
He dropped to his knees in the gravel beside the rider, shotgun tossed aside, hands working over a guy who bled from wounds way too old to be from the crash. Someone had cut him up and beaten him well before the chase. The ride here had been the last insult.
"Joder." Diego's voice cracked. "Lorenzo? Lorenzo, hermano, is that you? "
Lorenzo Vasquez was barely recognizable. Blood had soaked his jacket and dried in layers, old brown underneath and fresh red on top. His face had swollen past the point of reading, one eye sealed shut, his lips split and crusted over.
Diego got his head off the gravel. "What happened?"
Lorenzo opened his good eye and looked from Diego to me to the bloody blade in my hand.
"I was on a job," he said. "In Sevilla." He stopped and pulled a slow breath through his teeth. "They jumped me. They were… pantheon."
“Pantheon attacking their own?” Diego looked up at me.
“No,” Lorenzo shook his head. “Look…at their neck.”
I stomped back to the SUV and yanked the headless corpse over from the driver’s side. There wasn’t much left of him above the neck, but if I cleared enough blood and glass away, I could just barely make out the tattoo of an ant on his neck.
“Myrmidons,” I said and shoved the body away with disgust. “Achilles’ men. This stinks of Zeus.”
“Shit.” Diego pressed harder on the wound. "Help me get him inside."
I wiped the blade clean on my jeans and went to work.
Mierda, the blood justkept coming.
"Don't you dare close those eyes on me, cabrón."
Lorenzo's mouth moved, but nothing came out that made sense.
"Save it. You can complain after I stop you from bleeding out. Again." I pressed down harder on the wound in his side, and he tried to twist away from my hands. "Yeah, I know it hurts. Bitch about it later. Right now, you hold still or I swear on my abuela's santos I'll tie you down myself."
"Go... fuck yourself," Lorenzo got out, which meant his brain still worked and he remembered who to be pissed at. I'd count that as a win.
"Eight. Bathroom sink. Medical kit. Grab every towel in the house. Go."
She ran off to get it while Jasper slid his hands under Lorenzo's shoulders.
"Count of three," I said. "One, two..."
We hauled him up on three. Lorenzo cursed me in Portuguese, then Spanish, then something that might've been Italian, and honestly, that was a good sign. You don't have the energy to insult someone's mother in three languages if you're actually dying.
"Tranquilo, hermano. You're not bleeding out on my kitchen floor. I mopped last week."
"Bullshit," Lorenzo forced out through gritted teeth. "You've never mopped this floor in your life."
