Read Online Witch Lights by Michael M. Hughes - Free Book Online Page A

to and barely understanding Ramón’s stories of his crazy mother in Cuernavaca when he noticed the man slurring his speech. Had Mantu loaded the orange juice with vodka?
    And then Ramón’s eyes began to roll back in his head.
    “Oh, shit.” Ray climbed off his seat and leaned into the front. “Mantu. Something’s up with Ramón.” He looked back and the man’s head was lolling forward, a sliver of drool stretching to his Marlboro shirt. “Mantu, pull over. Pull over now.”
    Mantu eased the car to side of the road. He climbed out, without any obvious urgency, and slid open the side door. Tall, spiky grass lined the road beside them for what looked like miles. Ramón almost rolled out but both men caught him, then laid him out flat in the van.
    “What’s wrong, Mantu? Is he drunk? Or sick?”
    “None of the above.” Mantu closed the door behind him. “He’s out cold. For about eight hours.”
    Ray stared. “What?”
    “Just listen to me. I can’t explain right now. But you and me are doing what we need to do. You gotta trust me. Now give me that medical kit.”
    Mantu first removed Ramón’s watch and his cellphone and dropped them in a plastic container. He then took out a pair of tweezers. “Hold open his mouth. Wide as you can.”
    Ray hesitated.
    “Do it, Ray. We don’t have a lot of time.”
    Ray grabbed Ramón’s jaw and forehead and pushed them apart.
    “You gotta pull on his bottom teeth. I need to get in there.”
    Ray grimaced at pulling on Ramón’s wet, nicotine-yellow teeth, but he complied.
    Mantu pulled aside the left cheek. He inserted the tweezers. Ray heard steel scraping against teeth and he got chalk-on-blackboard shudders. Mantu kept poking around as if he were trying to yank something out. Finally he locked on something. He pulled hard. It slipped off. Pulled again and his arm snapped up. “Got it.” He smiled, lifting the tweezers. On the end was what looked like a bloody piece of Ramón’s gums with a tiny silver rod embedded in it.
    “Christ,” Ray whispered. “You’re a dentist and a comedian? What is that thing?”
    “It’s a locator,” Mantu said. “Lucky it wasn’t subdermal or it would have been a lot messier.” He held a piece of gauze inside Ramón’s mouth. Checked his now locator-free gums for blood, and was apparently okay with the dime-sized stain. “Okay. Let’s get him out of here.”
    “Where?”
    “As far as we can drag him in five minutes. Now get his arms.”
    —
    They dragged Ramón through the tall grass and laid him out against a tree. Mantu quickly scoured the perimeter. “He’ll be okay. He’s trained. I’m leaving him with money and ID. But he’s smart, and he’ll contact the Brotherhood as soon as he wakes up and finds someone with a phone. So we gotta move fast.”
    They hurried back through the dense brush.
    Mantu dug through the back of the van and pulled out a blowtorch.
    “Shit. What’s that for?” Ray said.
    “Watch,” Mantu said. He knelt and took Ramón’s watch and the bloody rice-sized locator and piled them in the dirt. He turned on the blowtorch and held the flame to the pile. “It’s the only way to destroy them. Burning it. Melting it all down.” He waved the flame slightly, and the metal turned a dull red and green. A wisp of black, acrid smoke rose, and it burned Ray’s nose.
    Ray knelt beside him. “Why are you doing this, Mantu?”
    Mantu kept wavering the flame. “I fucked you over once for the Brotherhood. They got Ellen and the boy because I told you they would be safe and guarded. And I was wrong. Micah was wrong. They were onto us and they got them both and then we stupidly sent you right into Crawford’s cage.”
    Ray didn’t know what to say.
    “So I’m not doing it this time—I’m not going along with them. You’re my friend. Shit, man, you’re like my brother after all we’ve been through—a
real
brother. And I didn’t tell you, but I spoke to Jeremy yesterday. He said they knew