The Holy Death

Chapter 31

The phone call woke Don Ramon Calderon from a deep sleep. He reached to the nightstand and grabbed the handset, and forgetting that the phone was an old-fashioned wired phone, almost pulled it onto the silken sheets of his large bed. "What?" He shouted into the handset.

"This is Gibson," The now familiar Australian spoke, "and I'm sorry to disturb you at such an hour, but some intelligence has come to my attention that you will find of interest. Are you with someone right now?"

"No, no, I'm not. My wife is in New York on a shopping excursion, and my mistress is in Monterrey visiting her mother."

"Which mistress is that?"

"Lola. The other one, what is her name, is in Jalisco. Anyway, what is this information you have? And it better interest me!"

"Very well. Your Santa Muerte has Douglas Campbell at his estate."

Don Calderon bolted upright in his bed, his eyes wide open. "What the... well, why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"That hitwoman, Cressida, I believe her name is, collected Douglas from Portland, Oregon a few days ago. He's been at the Santa Muerte's compound for a couple days now."

"And Morimoto? How did he fail?"

"By getting himself killed. Apparently Doug's brother is resourceful."

"So, Douglas Campbell has been at the Santa Muerte's estate for some time, and the Santa Muerte did not tell me of this. That son of a bitch! How dare he defy me!"

"You know, I am more than willing to rectify the situation for you."

"No. We will go together to speak to the Santa Muerte, and to claim my right of vengeance."

"Good. I am more than happy to help."

"Meet me at my operations base in Chihuahua. We will go from there, and confront that deceitful bastard!"

"Gladly."

Calderon slammed the handset not once, but several times, then picked the phone up and threw it across the room.

*

Jack advised that the road that led off the 45 toward the residence of the Santa Muerte was a well-worn dirt path, marked only by a single old fence post with an ominously-placed antelope skull on top. Now, Scott doubted that such a monument would last all these years, but apparently he was wrong. Jeremiah picked up on the foreboding marker about a half-hour south of Samalayuca. They turned off the paved road onto a dirt road that led deep into the Chihuahuan desert. They drove for miles and miles past sand dunes and open desert. Sometimes there was vegetation – a sparse grove of Joshua trees, a few agave plants, and various cacti, from the great saguaros to the smaller prickly pears. Of course, it being night, the girls could not enjoy the sparse beauty of the Mexican desert. The dirt road led them along dry creek beds and around forbidding rocky heights. It seemed like hours in part because they could not drive very fast in the near absolute dark (even vampiric visual abilities have their limits). Scott ended up driving for most of the way on the desert road, all the while thinking that it would have been better if they'd taken a four-wheel drive vehicle instead of Ministry's Mystery Machine.

Driving, driving, driving, through sand, sand, and more sand, for hours. Scott stopped only to allow the ladies to refresh themselves (and he was a perfect gentleman, walking them to a secluded location away from the van and making sure there were no snakes or scorpions about, before turning his back) and of course to put on a new shirt, tossing his shotgun-ruined old shirt into the desert. After driving past a particular craggy hill, Jack shouted at Scott to get his attention. Finally, they were drawing near to the lair of the Santa Muerte.