The cell phone that Magnus Lindberg had given Loup rang. “Oh, hey.” She fished it out of the front pocket of her jeans. “Christophe, how the fuck do I answer this thing?”
He showed her. “Push here.”
“Hello? Yeah, it’s me.” She listened. “Yeah? Okay, well, what does that mean?” She listened some more. “I dunno. We’ll talk about it. Yeah, we’re leaving today. Okay. I’ll call you.”
“Here.” Christophe pointed at the button to end the call.
“So?” Pilar asked, anxious.
Loup folded the phone. “Well, they’re kind of willing to go for it. Only you’d have to go through the same training as me and pass. That guy Magnus said they wouldn’t market you as a bodyguard, but they wouldn’t send you out without the basic skills.”
“Like what?”
“Self-defense, surveillance, and stuff. Like army training, I guess.”
“Huh.” Pilar looked dubious. “I don’t know if I’d make it through something like that.”
“Pilar, if you can go dancing for four hours, you can make it through some dumb training. You can do anything if you want it. You just have to decide whether or not you do.”
“Mmm.”
“Well, we don’t have to decide today,” Loup said pragmatically. “So let’s drive down to Huatulco. We’ll meet all my cousins and see if we like it there and want to stay for a while. If we do, you can get a job bartending, and I’ll… I dunno. Do something.”
“Construction,” Christophe suggested. “There are many buildings in need of repair after so long. My mother’s brother has a company. Alejandro works for him. I think he would hire you even though you have no experience. He likes us because we are fast and strong, and we have no fear of heights, and very good balance.”
Pilar shuddered. “Sitting the babies sounds a lot safer.”
They checked out of the hotel after breakfast and began the long drive. Christophe made the time pass by telling them stories about his aunts and uncles and cousins and growing up in Huatulco, doing things to terrorize the tourists like jumping from the rooftops into swimming pools. Loup listened wistfully, thinking how very different it was from her childhood, always having to hide what she was.
“You okay, honey?” Pilar asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I was just thinking about Tommy. I remember when he told me that I might not live that long, and I figured out if it was true, it meant my father was probably already dead.” She smiled a little. “Tommy said maybe there were other kids like me. A bunch of little loup-garous running around Mexico. Turns out it was true, huh?”
Pilar stroked her hair. “Such a good guy, your big brother.”
“Loup-garous?” Christophe asked.
“Werewolves,” Loup said. “I guess that’s what they call them in Haiti. My father asked my mother to name me after them.”
He smiled. “Loup Garron. I see. He had a sense of humor, Tío Martin.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “They weren’t always serious. The children, we could make them laugh. It made them happy to see us wild and free. Loup, do you know about meditating?”
“Huh?”
“Meditating,” Christophe said patiently. “To take time every day to slow down your body. Even ten minutes helps.”
“No. Why?”
“To extend our life spans.” He concentrated on the road. “They figured it out in the United States with fancy machines and things.”
“Biofeedback,” Loup said, remembering something I-want-to-be-your-friend Derek had said.
“Yes.” He nodded again. “Too late for the original kin, but us, it can help. You don’t need fancy machines, only to slow down for a little while every day. I will show you.”
“And I’ll make sure you do it.” Pilar yanked a lock of Loup’s hair.
“Ow!”
“I wanna keep you around, baby.”
Christophe smiled. “I think maybe your Santitos were as bad as a pack of loup-garous, prima.”
They drove for hours and hours, then turned off the big toll highway onto a smaller road that wound into mountains. Unlike the big highways, this one wasn’t well maintained. Up and up and up, dodging potholes, until they reached the highest peaks.
“Holy shit!” Pilar’s nails dug into Loup’s arm. “Look at it!”
“The ocean,” Christophe said softly.
Far, far below them it stretched out forever, a shining expanse of water with no end, reaching to the horizon and beyond, gleaming gold in the late-afternoon sunlight. It held all the promise of infinity, and it was beautiful.
“Wow,” Loup murmured. “I hope Mig got to see it. He really wanted to see the ocean.”
Pilar shook her head. “You and Miguel Garza.”
“Not like that.”
“He wanted to.”
“Only when he was drunk,” Loup said. “And I didn’t. He turned out to be a pretty good guy in the end, okay?”
“Yeah, he did,” Pilar admitted.
“Anyway.” Christophe pointed to a building with the word hotel painted on its roof, slowing the car as they approached. “This is a good place. We will stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we will finish the drive.”
It was a simple, rustic place, but the view was amazing and the rooms had porches overlooking the gorge. After they were settled, Christophe joined Loup on her porch. “Okay.” He sat cross-legged opposite her, hands loose on his knees. “Close your eyes if you like. Sit without moving, and think of slow things. I like to think of trees growing, big trees, so slow you cannot see it. Or maybe a mountain wearing down to sand.”
“Okay.”
“Breathe slow and deep. Think slow thoughts. Think of your body growing slower and slower, almost stopping. Every cell, stopping for a moment. Resting. Still.”
It was a peaceful feeling. Christophe’s voice fell silent.
Loup sat, motionless.
Still.
“Jesus!” Pilar said. “It’s like watching a couple of statues.”
“You are not helping, bonita.”
“I get the idea.” Loup opened her eyes. “So that’s it? Slow?”
“Yes.” Christophe nodded. “But you must do it every day. I do it in the morning before anything else.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Pilar promised.
They ate at the little hotel’s restaurant where all the tables and chairs were painted bright colors. Christophe flirted with their waitress, who spoke no English and giggled uncontrollably at the amount of food he and Loup ate.
“One in a hundred?” Pilar guessed.
“No.” He shook his head. A hint of melancholy shadowed his face. “Just a nice girl. She would not like it so much if she touched me.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Pilar glanced at Loup. “I remember what that was like for you, baby.”
“It still is with most people,” Loup said. “Sorry, Christophe. It’s pretty awful, I know.”
The shadow passed. “I told you, I’ll live.”
Afterward they watched the sun set over the ocean. Pilar let out a sigh as the last curve of the orange disc vanished beneath the distant horizon. “Wow. I never thought I’d see anything like that.”
“No,” Loup agreed.
When the dusk deepened to blue, they retreated to their rooms.
“Mmm.” Pilar, lying on the bed in her new sexy lingerie, smiled. “Baby, you make me shiver inside when you look at me that way.” She beckoned. “C’mere.”
Loup slid into bed beside her, kissed her.
“Jesus.” Pilar shuddered against her. “Hey, Loup?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really think I could do it?” Her hazel eyes searched Loup’s face. “That secret agent bodyguard training thing?”
She blinked, surprised. “Of course.”
“I like me with you,” Pilar said softly. She ran her fingers through Loup’s unruly hair, traced the line of her full lips. “A lot. I like who I am. No one else ever believed in me that way before.”
Loup gazed at her. “They should have.”
“Yeah, but you do.”
“Yep.” She kissed her again. “A lot.”
SIX
They arrived in Huatulco by midafternoon.
The place was actually a collection of small towns, all very close together. “You will stay in Santa Cruz, at my mother’s hotel,” Christophe informed them. “She insists. And tonight there will be a party.”
“Ohmigod!” Pilar caught her breath when they entered the town. “It’s so cute!”
He smiled. “Yes.”
The hotel was located beside the small marina. Christophe parked the car and glanced toward the water. “Come. We will see if Raimundo and Nacio’s boat is here. Fishing,” he explained to Loup. “They used their money to buy out the rest of us.”
They walked down the docks under the hot sun. Palm fronds waved languidly. Small boats bobbed on the water. Pilar looked dazed. “Jesus!” she murmured. “It really is like being in a movie.”
“Yeah, kinda,” Loup agreed.
“Hey!” Christophe grinned and pointed to a boat with a couple of figures lounging under the awning. He cupped his mouth and shouted something in Spanish. One of the figures shouted back, then both bounded over with exuberant, inhuman speed.
“Whoa!” Pilar exclaimed.
Loup fought the urge to tell them to slow down.
Both were young men, brown-skinned and shirtless, lithe with dense muscle. They fell on Christophe like eager puppies, hugging him with rough affection, then turned swiftly to Loup, pouring out questions in Spanish.
“Um… Ingles, por favor?” Loup tried out one of the phrases Christophe had taught them.