Work Text
Do you understand what a RICO charge is?
A barbecue of rubber and pork was what his nose spoke of, his ears told of a crackling and sizzling sound, and his eyes whispered the sight of blood rushing to open wounds and evaporating as it hit the embers. The screaming had already become background noise as his mind raced backward away from the scene at hand. They were in clear advantage, numerically they were stronger, physically more powerful, what happened? The one who had stood in the back. He hadn’t been moving before, just observing. But the fire, it came from him, without a doubt. He had no lighter, no fluid, no means to scatter the flames like he did. Was it possible? Were los hechiceros real?
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Means you won’t be seeing the light of day unless you start acting cooperative.
He remembered the way that the city began to smell when it would rain. He remembered that mixed scent of metal, concrete, and bayou following him indoors as his mother lectured him for staying out when the downpour was so dangerous. He had already grown out of being incentivized into good behavior with gifts from Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny that would never come. His older siblings had already told him that La Llorona was not real after a week of him crying that he could hear her and they let him know that their mom was not going to let a random man at the store take him. But this time her threat was new, she said, “Leopoldo, you can’t stay outside when the weather is like this. It’s when misery is heightened and los espiritus impios feed off that misery. Los hechiceros will grab you and sacrifice you to make a deal with the strongest ones they can find. When it's miserable, you come here or go to Señor Ramirez at the pharmacy.” None of his four siblings ever said that his mom was lying about los hechiceros.
You almost graduated high school, I don’t need to picture for you how a jury of your peers will hear your explanation of how we found you surrounded by bodies on cartel property.
The screams could no longer be pushed to the background, he was forced to reckon with the scene before him. His friends, some he had known since middle school, were burning in front of him. Some had already succumbed to shock and lay petrified, but two were still writhing in agony. His mind began to flood with fear. Run, hide, do something, his thoughts pleaded with his body. Yet he couldn’t order these thoughts together as he stumbled backward; his eyes peeled and focused on his closest friend Alejandro. He thought that maybe it was the fourth day in a row that he didn’t get lunch at school when Alejandro approached him. Selling cigarettes to the other kids at school, they could upcharge at 50% markups. Cigarette buyers would only purchase so many though, and less legal and harder-to-obtain substances saw bigger profit margins. And when they could buy in bulk from the cartel suppliers, the numbers told their story. At some point, Leopoldo realized he was in what could be considered a gang, but it was at that same point that he stopped caring. The spreadsheet on his laptop let him know that what he did worked. Optimizing price points, differentials, and sales targets, he didn’t want a penny to slip out of their hands. Those pennies made sure, not just that he ate at school, but that he could take his family to eat at sushi or steak restaurants with all his “saved up McDonald’s paychecks”. His oldest sister knew something was up when he was talking about the type of cars he was going to buy after he got his license, she didn’t stop him but let him know that to flash cash like that would be asking for trouble. So when the New Kings Cartel had invited Leopoldo and his gang to fly south of the Texan border, he was the only one to show up to the private airfield in a car that cost less than 6 figures.
Hell, that’s if my superiors even let you out here for a civilian trial. BREW’s more apt to push things into a military tribunal, especially considering all that damage that you caused. I hardly think that you’ll be able to explain why 999, sorry 997 cursed spirits should be allowed to leave this building.
El hechicero was walking towards him, stomping out the life of his friends as he taunted Leopoldo. Playing with his prey, yet Leopoldo couldn’t even understand him. The young man’s mind was too frantic. And the voices. God, the voices were so loud. Before a fight, he wouldn’t take the pills from Señor Ramirez that made his hallucinations go away as they often made him feel so sluggish. The same went for this trip to one of the cartel’s getaways. Why did the New Kings invite them to one of their properties in the midst of their turf war with another gang? Something didn’t feel right, so as they went hunting, boating, and fishing, Leopoldo took small and polite sips of the drinks offered, but never drank as hard as his friends were. He needed to be alert. Men with “CRN” embroidered into their suits would watch the young men, not betraying the slightest hint at their emotions. Leopoldo’s suspicions were confirmed when they drove a great distance away from the main portion of the property to this warehouse and were met with that new gang giving them trouble. The East Texas regional head of the cartel, the man they had always done business with simply clapped his hands, and without negotiation or pause, the two gangs charged at one another. Fattening up the prey, that's all this little ritual was. That salesman wanted to sort out the turf war fast and had picked a side beforehand. As that realization set into Leopoldo’s mind, everything went quiet. He could only hear the sound of a flickering flame mere inches from his face. El hechicero was standing over him and holding the flame on the tip of his ring finger, he smirked, and then the smirk faded. Leopoldo had felt something in his throat, then his mouth, then pushing against his teeth. Charge. He opened his mouth as a long spear shot out from him, piercing el hechicero and pinning him against the ceiling. Retreat. It was like a blur, but he felt so much stronger than before, he was crushing his opponents with his bare hands, dodging their swings, and taking their hits as though they were from a child.
As your newest friend, I can offer you the sort of deal that you can only dream of in circumstances like this. Rather than face exorcism in front of a military tribunal or face the death penalty in Texas, you can do a few tasks for BREW that’ll help us root out the cartel and the warlocks they’re using. Think of it like an internship of sorts. Unpaid, of course.
Neither the regional head nor his entourage took lightly to their favored champions being massacred as Leopoldo had done. The salesman was probably scolding him or something, but Leopoldo could only hear the voices, cheering and laughing. When a man with “CRN” imprinted across his tie sent two quadrupedal unearthly creatures at Leopoldo, the voices had gone quiet again. Skirmish. Leopoldo could not remember much of what happened after that. He remembered sitting in a bar, watching through the window at what could theoretically be his arms ripping that salesman in half. He remembered turning away from the glass, and the bar being filled with all sorts of creatures, some bipedal, some with more limbs than could be counted, sizes ranging from the equivalent of squirrels to towering monsters. Then, he remembered the bar fading out as a helicopter let out a squad of men in all black to pick his partly conscious body up amongst the corpses that littered the ground around him in that accursed warehouse. The man sitting across from him in that helicopter was the same man interrogating him now.
I guess introductions are in order. I’m Ben Smith, a witch.
Un brujo? Was he just like Señor Ramirez? This pale man in a plain black-and-white suit had a clear-as-day American accent, didn’t operate a pharmacy, and was threatening a young adult with execution; he clearly was not like Señor Ramirez. A voice rose up from the back of his mind: “he is stronger than the pharmacist, can’t you feel his presence?” Whoever said that was speaking the truth, Leopoldo could feel the energy seeping off this man’s body even though he was showing his age in his gray hairs and heavier body.
And who am I speaking to? Mr. Alonso, Legate, or another one of the cursed spirits residing in this body?