Dead Harvest

  "Says he's a fisherman. Died of natural causes – and just yesterday, at that. He's as fresh as can be," she added, smiling sweetly.

  Fresh. Right. Just goes to show you, you should never trust a creature of the night.

  Turned out, Lilith's idea of natural causes included drowning. This guy'd spent six hours in the drink before they'd found him, washed ashore in a tangle of kelp a good three miles from where he'd gone overboard. I'd cleaned up as best I could in the mortuary sink, but no amount of scrubbing could erase the reek of low tide that clung to his hair, his skin, his coarse thicket of stubble. Still, if Lilith thought this guy would be enough to make me cave and snatch myself a living vessel, she was sorely mistaken. I'm nothing if not stubborn.

  But the hassle with the meat-suit was nothing compared to the job itself. His name was Pablo Varela. A major player in the local drug trade. Varela's brutality was a matter of public record. In the two decades he'd been involved in the trafficking of coca, he'd only once been brought to trial. That had been seven years back, and the Colombian government turned the trial into quite the spectacle – TV, radio, the whole nine. Their way, I guess, of demonstrating their newfound dedication to the War on Drugs. Varela declined counsel, and mounted no defense. After eight weeks of damning testimony from the prosecution, it took the jury only minutes to acquit. Some say Varela got to them – that he threatened their lives and the lives of their families if they failed to set him free. Others claim he didn't have to, that his reputation alone was enough to guarantee his release. Whatever it was, the jury made the right choice. Save for them, everyone who set foot in the courtroom over the course of his trial was murdered – every lawyer, every witness, everyone. Some, like the bailiff and the court reporter, got off easy: two bullets to the back of the head. The judge and chief prosecutor weren't so lucky. They were strung up by their entrails in the city square – their throats slit, their tongues yanked through the gash in the Colombian style. One week later, the courthouse burned to the ground.

  Now a guy like Varela, I don't much mind dispatching. Problem was, the man was paranoid. As soon as he caught wind that I was looking for him, he sent a couple of his goons around to take care of me. That didn't go so well for them, so he sent a couple more. I'm afraid they didn't fare much better. That's when I slipped up. See, I'm not much for killing anyone I don't have to. You could call it mercy, I suppose, or whatever passes for a conscience among the denizens of hell. I call it stupidity, because the bastard that I spared spilled his story to Varela, who grabbed a handful of his most trusted men – not to mention enough firepower to topple your average government – and disappeared into the jungle. Not a bad play, I'll admit. Hell, the first day or so, I even thought it was kinda cute. But as the hours wore on, and the rain continued unabated, the whole affair sort of lost its shine.

  Now it'd been four days since I left Cartagena – four grueling days of tracking Varela and his men through blistering heat and near-constant downpours, without so much a moment to eat or sleep or even catch my breath. Varela's men were well-trained and familiar with the terrain, but they were also laden with gear and would no doubt stop to rest, so I was certain I could catch them. Still, October is Colombia's rainy season, and during that rainy season, there's not a wetter place on Earth. All I wanted was to turn around – to find some nice, secluded spot on the beach and watch the waves roll in off the Caribbean through the bottom of a bottle of beer. Which is exactly what I intended to do, just as soon as Varela was dead.